On Saturday a high-ranking Chinese government official lashed out at the West’s sanctions regimen against Russia in the wake of the Ukraine invasion, blasting the far-reaching punitive measures which have also served to severely isolate Moscow as increasingly “outrageous”.
“The sanctions against Russia are getting more and more outrageous,” Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng told a security forum in Beijing, according to Reuters.
Strongly suggesting the sanctions would only serve to harm common Russian citizens, he described that the West depriving the people of their overseas assets were ultimately “for no reason”.
“History has proven time and again that sanctions cannot solve problems. Sanctions will only harm ordinary people, impact the economic and financial system… and worsen the global economy.”
He further hinted that US and EU sanctions would in the end only escalate the situation, as Reuters continues, he…
acknowledged Moscow’s point of view on NATO, saying the alliance should not further expand eastwards, forcing a nuclear power like Russia “into a corner”.
The unusually blunt Chinese reaction (given Beijing has appeared somewhat reluctant to weigh in too forcefully behind either side thus far, other than calling out NATO expansion) to the ratcheting Ukraine crisis comes the same day that Ukrainian President Zelensky’s office publicly urged Beijing to come out and condemn “Russian barbarism” in a public statement.
In a Twitter statement presidential aide Mikhailo Podolyak asserted “China can be the global security system’s important element if it makes a right decision to support the civilized countries’ coalition and condemn Russian barbarism.”
It seems the implication behind the Chinese vice foreign minister’s fresh remarks might also be that if Russia is feeling pushed into a corner …so is Beijing – given that the past week has seen the Biden administration bring China’s growing cooperation with Russian into its crosshairs, with Biden warning his counterpart Xi Jinping in a Friday call that serious “consequences” follow if Beijing is found to be supplying Moscow with military equipment to aid its operations in Ukraine.
As on Chinese state TV pundit has put it…
Jake Sullivan has also this week warned against any possible Chinese help given to Russia for sanctions evasion. China has notably failed thus far to even use the words “invasion”, instead opting for vaguer words like “crisis” – even as the assault on Ukraine enters its fourth week.
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Josep Borrell, one of the top unelected officials on the European Commission recently admitted that the West has expended virtually all their possible sanctions against Russia. Many of the sanctions make exceptions for energy etc. which is as good as handing Russia a list of targets if they choose to impose further sanctions of their own.
Perhaps the dumbest move by the EU was to deny Russian flights over their territory who immediately responded in kind. Now the Asian airlines that can still overfly Russia to and from Europe have been handed a huge competitive advantage in terms of fuel costs and flight times.
Russia does not even need to impose formal sanctions, it can give export priority to countries that have remained supporters or neutral. Thailand has been steadfastly neutral from day one. The US embassy here has refused to recognize that, insisting we are on the Russian side. If it comes down to a toss up of whether to sell wheat to the UK or Thailand it will be no contest.
At the end of the day it is possible that Europe will be the bigger victim of the visceral hatred of Russia by the Five Eyes/EU crowd.
So the US administration doesn’t like it when another country, like china perhaps, sends arms to a nation fighting a country that the US is supplying arms to. Its almost like a bully saying ‘Not fair’ when when another kid punches them in the head while they are kicking a victim.
Sanctions aren’t new are they? Didn’t FDR impose sanctions on Japan? How’d that work out? Oh yes. Pearl Harbor. But then FDR wanted America in the war, didn’t he?