London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Aug 22, 2025

US dollar payment system debate continues, can America use its Swift-Financial-Weapon to cut China off from Swift?

US dollar payment system debate continues, can America use its Swift-Financial-Weapon to cut China off from Swift?

Analysts and officials continue to say it is highly unlikely United States will use it’s Swift-Financial-Weapon to cut off China or Hong Kong from US dollar payment system Swift. The issue is seen as a major threat to not only China’s future economic development, but also to world peace

Debates continue among Chinese officials and analysts as to whether the United States has the ability and willingness to reduce or even completely cut off China’s access to the US dollar system, reflecting a sense of uneasiness in Beijing about the potential ramifications of a financial war with Washington.

The general consensus, according to published reports and views, is that Washington will not go to this extreme, as it has with Iran and North Korea, because of the risks that such a drastic move would pose to the US itself and to the global economy.
However, for China, the risk remains real that the US could use the US dollar’s hegemony to inflict pain on China if relations continue to deteriorate.

Washington has already announced that it will penalise individuals involved in undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and punish Chinese financial institutions that continue to do business with them – a relatively targeted approach to financial sanctions. A big question is whether these sanctions could escalate.

Wang Yongli, a former vice-president at Bank of China and a former member of the board of Swift – the international financial payments system – wrote in a note over the weekend that it would be “highly complicated and impractical” for the US to exclude all Chinese and Hong Kong financial institutions from the US dollar payments system.

“The United States has huge economic, trade and financial interests in Hong Kong. Kicking Hong Kong out of Swift would not only harm Chinese financial institutions in the city, but would severely affect all international institutions in Hong Kong, including American institutions,” Wang wrote.

Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is a network used by banks around the world to send and receive information about financial transactions. It is one of the pieces of infrastructure that underpins the anchor role of the US dollar in international trade and investment.

Foreign banks have correspondent relationships with US banks, through which they conduct US dollar transactions. The US government can order US banks to stop processing transactions with certain individuals, institutions and countries, denying them access to the US dollar payments system.

Wang added that China must not panic, but must calmly respond to potential US sanctions, because if the US cuts off Hong Kong from the US dollar payment system, it will “shoot itself in the foot” and deeply affect global demand. This, he said, would likely promote the establishment of a new international payment and settlement system to replace the current US dollar-denominated one, and, at the same time, pose a major threat to world peace.

A senior official in Beijing who is close to the country’s central bank told the South China Morning Post that he thinks it would be impossible for the US to exclude all Chinese institutions in Hong Kong from Swift, because doing so would be a major escalation in the confrontation between the two countries.

Ding Shuang, chief China economist at Standard Chartered bank, agreed that the US is unlikely to impose financial sanctions on Hong Kong as a whole but may sanction some individual Chinese banks in the city.

Relations between the world’s two largest economies have deteriorated sharply over a sea of issues including the trade war, the Covid-19 pandemic, territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the new national security law, and arms sales to Taiwan.

Last week, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end Hong Kong’s special status under US law, as well as the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which provides for mandatory sanctions against individuals and entities seen as contributing to the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy, and, after a year, penalties for banks that still do business with them.

Despite economists repeatedly arguing that the risk of the US cutting off Hong Kong or China from Swift is low, Chinese state media and officials have continued to discuss the potential consequences and what China could do to mitigate the risks.

“Although the US has a great influence on Swift, the organisation is not ruled by it. Given the scale of China’s economy and finance, the probability of being completely cut off from the US dollar payment and settlement system is extremely low,” the Securities Times, a newspaper affiliated with People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, said on Monday.



A commentary in the Global Times, the state-backed nationalistic tabloid, said last month that China “must be cautious of the US’s malicious intentions”. It also warned that, for the US, cutting off China from Swift would be like “drinking poison to quench its thirst”.

“Blocking China from Swift would cause big trouble and losses for China, but it would also harm the US. Although the US wouldn’t immediately lose its superpower status, US dollar hegemony would be doomed to collapse. After all, China has an economy second only to the United States, with huge dollar reserves and dollar bonds in its hands,” the commentary said.

Guotai Junan Securities, the Shanghai-based investment bank and securities company, said in a note on Monday that if the US suspends China’s access to Swift, the mainland could lose US$300 billion in trade per year. It will also lose more than US$90 billion in foreign direct investment in China and more than US$80 billion in outward foreign direct investment.

“All Chinese state-owned commercial banks, as well as the stock exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen, have joined Swift. Once they are cut off from the system, meaning the US imposes financial sanctions on all Chinese commercial banks, the source of US dollars for these banks will completely dry up,” the report warned.

For Hong Kong, the worst consequences would be the city losing its status as an international financial hub, as institutions in the city would be unable to obtain US dollars, risking the collapse of Hong Kong’s US dollar peg and a drastic depreciation of the Hong Kong currency in the short term, the report said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
After 200,000 Orders in 2 Minutes: Xiaomi Accelerates Marketing in Europe
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
Taylor Swift on the Way to the Super Bowl? All the Clues Stirring Up Fans
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Apple Expands Social Media Presence in China With RedNote Account Ahead of iPhone 17 Launch
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Bill Barr Testifies No Evidence Implicated Trump in Epstein Case; DOJ Set to Release Records
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
Emails Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
JPMorgan Plans New Canary Wharf Tower
Zelenskyy and his allies say they will press Trump on security guarantees
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
The Drought in Britain and the Strange Request from the Government to Delete Old Emails
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
"No, Thanks": The Mathematical Genius Who Turned Down 1.5 Billion Dollars from Zuckerberg
The surprising hero, the ugly incident, and the criticism despite victory: "Liverpool’s defense exposed in full"
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
×