China opposed unilateral financial sanctions and won’t participate in such sanctions imposed by Western nations on Russia, Guo Shuqing, the head of China’s banking and insurance regulator, said Wednesday.
In the latest sanctions on Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, Western allies decided Tuesday to cut off several Russian banks from Swift global financial messaging system.
“We will not participate in such sanctions, and we will continue to maintain normal economic, trade and financial exchanges with relevant parties,” said Mr. Guo in a briefing.
Unilateral financial sanctions normally don’t show a good effect and lack a legal basis, he said in response to a question in the briefing.
Given close ties between Beijing and Moscow, analysts believe China could provide an alternative by offering to use its own fledgling rival to Swift, called the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, though the Chinese network has much limited reach.
Regarding the impact of such sanctions on China’s economy and financial system, he said that “it is not too obvious now and needs to be observed,” but impact should be limited given the resilience of the Chinese economy.
–Grace Zhu contributed to this article