Feb 28, 2022: According to a report by Reuters, China so far does not appear to be helping Russia evade Western financial sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

According to a senior official in the Biden administration, China is so far not heloing Russia evade U.S sanctions and that doing so would “do profound damage” to China’s reputation. He said if China were to help Russia evade U.S. sanctions, “it really would be an unfortunate signal for China’s vision of the world,” and give “tacit or explicit accommodation to Russia’s invasion of a sovereign country in the heart of Europe.”

“It would do profound damage to its reputation in Europe, but really across the world,” the official said of China.

He further said that so far the signs show that China is “not coming to the rescue” for Russia. He added that recent reports that some Chinese banks have stopped issuing letters of credit for purchases of physical commodities from Russia were a positive sign.

It is to be noted that Chinese banks that do business with Russian banks and other entities hit with full blocking sanctions and put on the Treasury’s “specially designated nationals” list could face sanctions themselves and loss of access to the U.S. financial system.

Since Russia launched an invasion in to Ukraine last week, the U.S and its allies agreed to impose sanctions against Russia’s central bank and disconnect key Russian banks from the SWIFT international financial transaction network.