By Nirmal P. Acharya
Recently, US Secretary of State Blinken threatened to kick China out of the SWIFT system if it did not sever all trade ties with Russia.
SWIFT system is a kind of international fund clearing system. Financial institutions in different countries exchange messages with their counterparts to complete cross-border financial transactions through SWIFT international settlement system.
That sounds scary. But looking back, soon after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia was kicked out of the SWIFT system, and some comments at the time said that this was equivalent to the United States launching a “financial nuclear bomb” on Russia. Now, two years later, the Russian economy has not collapsed but has maintained high growth.
Many of the actions of the US are like throwing a “boomerang”, and the result is that the US has been hurt by its own actions.
Historically, the US waged wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. These are boomerangs thrown at the US, which is hurting its own vitality. The US is the operator behind the current Russia-Ukraine war and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The conduct of this war and conflict has severely depleted its national power and has already begun to provoke civil unrest, with the result that it is also a “boomerang”.
Secretary Blinken’s idea of kicking China out of the SWIFT system is even more of a boomerang impulse.
Just imagine, kicking China, the world’s largest industrial country, the largest trading country, and the world’s second-largest economy out of the SWIFT system, what consequences will it have on the US?
Obviously, this will seriously weaken the status of the dollar as the world currency, accelerate the de-dollarization of world trade, and even lead to the collapse of the dollar hegemony.
Kicking China out of the SWIFT system would be a big boomerang thrown by the US, which had better be careful.
In fact, MCC is also a “boomerang” thrown by the US. The “boomerang” will fly back to the US after a loop across the Himalayas. Where it will hurt America remains to be seen.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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