Aaron Arnold, an American “sanctions” expert who worked at the U.S. DOD and DOJ before moving to the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies (RUSI), penned an article in Foreign Policy on Feb. 17 with the above title, subtitled: “Putin has found an economic lifeline in Beijing that only Washington can destroy.” Does one need further proof that the target is the destruction of the Russian and Chinese economies, rather than Ukraine or Taiwan or anything else?
Arnold hits at the historic Feb. 4 Joint Statement by Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, which, he whines, “provide[s] Putin an opportunity to lessen the blow from potential Western sanctions.”
“If Washington expects to convey a credible deterrent against a Russian invasion of Ukraine using financial and economic sanctions, it will need to signal its resolve to impose secondary sanctions against China in the same breath. The problem is that the United Kingdom and the European Union, key U.S. allies, do not have the same legal or regulatory frameworks to impose secondary sanctions against Chinese banks or state-owned enterprises.” This is, of course, total nonsense. The U.S. unilateral and secondary sanctions are illegal under international law, and the Brits have never had any problem ignoring such trifles. It is simply another example of the British Empire getting the Americans to do their dirty work, both military and economic.
