US mulls sanctions on China if Beijing attempts to salvage Russia's economy amid SWIFT ban

Amid a flurry of international sanctions on Russia as against the Kremlin's untoward invasion of Ukraine, on March 8 the United States senator for Florida Marco Rubio mentioned that he is mulling legislation to sanction China if it helps Moscow circumvent SWIFT sanctions. Taking to the micro-blogging site Twitter, the senator vouched for trying the Xi Jinping-led regime if it helped Russia use Beijing's Cross-Border International Payments System (CIPS) to benefit from SWIFT and get around sanctions slapped on Vladimir Putin-led country. 

Rubio shared, 'I am working on legislation that would impose sanctions on China if we catch trying to use their Cross-Border International Payments System (CIPS) to help Russia get around SWIFT sanctions.'

To diminish Russia's profitability in the global market and make it harder for Beijing, several countries -quintessentially the West, ordered sanctions on Moscow. Now, CIPS is said to rely heavily on SWIFT's financial services and comprises approximately 1,100 financial institutions from 100 nations, including many entities from China and ones from Russia. By scrapping Russia's private banks off the SWIFT payment network, the International domain for global financial transactions that the US and the EU believe will cripple the Russian economy. 

The predicament holds relevance as China is Russia's biggest trading partner, however, a senior Joe Biden-led administration official said that China will not come to the rescue of Russia after the series of Western financial sanctions on Moscow over launching an assault on Ukraine. 

Fresh sanctions on Russia in the pipeline

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, on Monday, met with Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi to discuss the new sanction enforcement package that they are working on. Issuing a statement, in the view of the Kremlin's 'recklessness', Leyen informed that the Commission along with Italy is looking forward to imposing a fresh battery of sanctions to make sure that the effect of the sanctions has been 'maximised'. 

"We are going to discuss the situation in Ukraine, the war which is led by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the new sanction enforcement package that we are working on. As you know, we had three packages of hard-hitting sanctions already, but now we have to make sure that there are no loopholes and that the effect of the sanctions is maximised. The sanctions in place are really biting as we see the downward turbulences in the Russian economy. But in view of the Kremlin's recklessness towards civilians, including women, children, men, we are also working on further sanctions," the EU Commission President said.