China Abruptly Sanctions Iran Oil, Signaling Compliance with U.S.

The announcement came from Chinese export-finance bank and China’s largest state oil refineries, indicating that they were pulling back on doing business with Tehran. This withdrawal will have a huge impact on Iran as China is the single biggest oil customer of Iran that imports 648 million barrel per day.

“China’s major firms are not just invested in Iran but other countries as well. They have much more to lose if they are subject to sanctions, which is why you see the majors starting to pull out,” said Riley Walters, a policy analysts at The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center.

 

The Iran oil sanction does not only apply to Iran, but also to those countries who do business with Iran as well. The defiance will be blocked from accessing to U.S. markets and financial institutions. India, Korea, Turkey, and Italy who are also Iran’s top buyers will have to choose whether to get around the U.S. sanctions or to make up the shortfall somewhere else.

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh insisted in an interview on state television earlier this week that the U.S. campaign to sanction Iran will fail. If another interview is to be made today, will the oil minister give the same statement?

However, at this moment, no matter who else pulls back on Iran, the most crucial one would still be China. Has China finally realized that the long disputes with U.S. would bring nothing but only destruction of its own country?

 

On October 19, 2018, SSEC sunk to its lowest since 2014. Later, the government announced a new tax deduction plan. The special deduction items are related to children’s education, adult education, treatment of serious diseases, the livelihood of the elderly, housing loan interest and home rent. Surprisingly, the Chinese stock market suddenly rebounded. Nevertheless, the government is unable to keep issuing plans after plans to buoy the markets, maybe it is time to come to a conclusion with big brother.

Yesterday, Wall Street Journal just reported that the U.S. will not discuss trade talks with China until China comes up with specific plans to stop allegedly stealing technology. This has raised negative sentiment globally as everyone is expecting to hear the outcome of the trade talk in late November between the U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi JinPing.

 

Which may have led to the sanctions on Iran by China, showing that the dragon can comply with the eagle. If this truly is China’s intention, the trade war between the two powerful nations may come to an agreement soon.