China’s war chest: how Beijing is using its currency to insulate against future sanctions

News Snapshot:

For more than a decade, Beijing has been trying to reduce its reliance on the dollar, motivated by risks emerging from the US economy – such as the financial crash of 2008 – and the desire to boost its own sphere of influence. But in the last year, a drive to insulate China’s economy from dollar-based sanctions has emerged as possibly the most important incentive for decoupling from the dollar, as China looks to prepare for the possibility of conflict with Taiwan. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the most powerful tools for inflicting economic harm on Moscow was...