News Analysis |
U.S state department has imposed fresh economic sanctions over Russia, blacklisting further companies, military and intelligence personnel for “malign activities”. It is not something out of the box as far as Russia is concerned since the country has been repeatedly been the target of the U.S sanction since the Crimea episode. However, the extraordinary development is the sanctions which are imposed on China for buying SU-35 and S-400 missile defense system from Russia. The move has outraged China which has threatened the U.S for the consequences of these sanctions are not taken back.
“The US actions have seriously violated the basic principles of international relations and seriously damaged the relations between the two countries and the two militaries,” said foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, adding Beijing had lodged an official protest with the US. “We strongly urge the US to immediately correct their mistake and withdraw their so-called sanctions, otherwise the US will have to bear the consequences.”
The precedence tells that CAATSA has not been much effective against the powerful states and it is already proven that China has the potential to hurt the U.S.
Latest sanctions when seen through the prism of annual Pentagon reports suggest that the U.S has now decided to curb the growing, both individual and colluded, the threat of China and Russia through CAATSA. Countering America’s Enemies through Sanctions Act, CAATSA was approved in 2017 primarily to be used against the states such as Russia, Iran, and North Korea. But apparently, Washington has decided to test the effectiveness of this tool against another growing regional and subsequently global threat of China.
The United States is the world leader in entrepreneurship and technology and is thought to be the hub for business in terms of Multi-National Corporations. Though it might seem for a layman that it’s just the sanctions from one country against the other which is likely to affect the bilateral trade at most, it is not that simple. Iran’s case is the prime example to understand this phenomenon of how America uses its economic might to coercive countries into doing things it wants.
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The USA has clearly stated that any country found to be trading with Iran after November 4 of this year, will also be sanctioned and won’t be allowed to do business through American financial institutions. But the key question, however, remains that how effective are the sanctions to force countries into compliance especially the ones like Russia and China which have a global stake and sphere of influence? The answer presents in the form the repeated sanctions against the Russia which was put under crippling economic terms where several of its corporations were blacklisted for international trade and yet it continued to meddle in the strategic fields of U.S from the Middle East to South Asia.
Even there were reports of the black market trade between Russia and North Korea which further mocked the U.S sanctions at point blank. China and Russia underwent one of the most enormous military exercises a week ago. The indications were taken very seriously in conjunction to intelligence reports which resulted in the idea of massive overhauling of the U.S air force. And China being the latest victim of CAATSA speaks volume of how the USA wants to deal with the threat. Active confrontation is never the option in the contemporary world because of the might of all these global forces therefore only resort is found in economic and proxy war.
Read more: US-Russia-China triangle in flux, again
Trump administration has already gone down the road of increased tariffs against China, along with Europe and Canada, which has not played quite well after the retaliatory tariffs from China. The response was meticulously calculated by Beijing imposing tariffs on agricultural good produces in the southern states of the U.S which are considered to be the support base for the U.S president. China has been very categorical in its response that there will be “consequences” if these sanctions are not taken back. The precedence tells that CAATSA has not been much effective against the powerful states and it is already proven that China has the potential to hurt the U.S.