Sanctions ‘a boomerang and double-edged sword,’ says China’s Xi

ISTANBUL (AA) – History has repeatedly proven that “sanctions are a boomerang and a double-edged sword,” China’s President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday.

“To politicize the global economy and turn it into one’s tool or weapon, and willfully impose sanctions by using one’s primary position in the international financial and monetary systems will only end up hurting one’s own interests as well as those of others, and inflict suffering on everyone,” he said at the opening of a virtual BRICS business forum.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are members of the group founded in June 2009.

Xi’s remarks come in the backdrop of burgeoning Western sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine war that have made Russia the most-sanctioned country in the world.

Beijing, a close ally of Moscow, has so far refused to condemn the war and supported Russia’s stance against NATO’s eastward expansion, at the same time calling for efforts to broker peace through diplomatic negotiations.

Xi also told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last week that Beijing will keep backing Moscow on issues of sovereignty and security.