China

The country is implementing defensive economic strategies, at least for now Financial security has become an indispensable part of China’s national security discourse since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Rising geopolitical tensions with the US since 2018 and the West’s financial sanctions against Russia have further incentivised Chinese policy-makers to fortify the economy by diluting the dollar’s centrality and developing an alternative system. To this end, the Chinese government has pursued three primary strategies. First, China has supported and promoted regional and multilateral currency and financial co-operation through regional or non-western partnerships. In 2000, it supported the launch of the Chiang Mai Initiative in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis and the B...

Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary, has urged the EU to intervene urgently to dampen the growing export levels of Chinese cut-price green technology including solar panels and wind turbines, pushing European leaders to move to a full-scale trade war. At the same time she urged German bank executives on Tuesday to step up efforts to comply with sanctions against Russia and shut down efforts to circumvent them to avoid potential penalties themselves that could see the US cut them off from dollar access. Her remarks, in Frankfurt, come just hours after the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, gave her strongest hint yet that the EU would join the US and impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles after a soon-to-be completed investigation into alleged state su...