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‘Crazy’ US sanctions against China, Russia ‘weaponise’ financial markets, threaten to undermine dollar, former HKMA chief Joseph Yam says
- US sanctions on other countries will undermine the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, Yam says in fiery webinar
- Yam didn’t hold any punches as he railed against the economy with which the city’s currency and monetary policy are linked
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The eminence grise of Hong Kong’s banking circles has come out swinging against the United States in an unusual webinar that set a strident tone against the economy with which the city’s currency and monetary policy are linked.
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The US government, under Donald Trump and his successor Joe Biden, has “weaponised” the financial markets, a “stupid and crazy” strategy that would undermine the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, said Joseph Yam Chi-kwong, the former chief executive of Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the de facto central bank.
“First of all they put restrictions on Chinese enterprises’ financing in the US, and stopped Americans investing in Chinese enterprises at the same time,” Yam said in an online webinar in Mandarin organised by the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary and Financial Research, a research unit of the HKMA.
“These are like capital controls or restrictions on people to use the US dollar or the international financial infrastructure. I think the Americans are getting crazier in this regard.”
Yam, 73, is now a member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong, the cabinet of Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.
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In the waning weeks of his presidency, Trump signed an executive order to ban US investments in Chinese state-owned companies for what he deemed “ties to the Chinese military.” The order listed 35 stocks, including China Mobile, China Unicom and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).
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