An ICYMI item overnight on strong urgings from BOC International
"A good punch to the enemy will save yourself from hundreds of punches from your enemies"
"We need to get prepared in advance, mentally and practically"
The substance of the note (in brief):
- China should prepare for potential US sanctions
- Should increase use of its own financial messaging network for cross-border transactions in the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau
- Greater use of the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) instead of the Belgium-based SWIFT system would also reduce exposure of China's global payments data to the United States
A couple of important things to note about this:
- BOC International is the wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of China
- Bank of China is one of the four biggest state-owned commercial banks in China.
- The strongly worded advice comes from the bank's chief economist Guan Tao, previously a director of the international payments department of State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).
The background to this is that Chinese state lenders have been revamping contingency plans in anticipation of US legislation that could penalise banks for serving officials who implement the new national security for Hong Kong
Via Asia Times
