China says U.S. has no authority to impose unilateral sanctions on countries dealing with Iran

image credit: AFP/Getty

Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post

China has wholly rejected the new sanctions from the United States which take aim at all foreign banks and financial institutions which continue to deal with Iranian crude oil.

“The Chinese side always opposes one country unilaterally imposing sanctions against another according to [its] domestic law. Furthermore, it does not accept the unilateral imposition of those sanctions on a third country,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

This comes as the United States continues to build up forces in the region surrounding Iran in addition to long-term plans to build a much larger presence near Iran.

The new round of sanctions came on Friday when President of the United States Barack Obama approved the measures targeting foreign financial institutions which either purchase Iranian oil or allow it to be purchased through them.

I see these threats from the United States as just another instance of the West attempting to strong-arm the rest of the world into following their agenda, even if it is detrimental for all involved and has absolutely no real reason to be in place.

After all, even American intelligence agencies agree that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear program with military applications, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta himself has confirmed this on no less than two occasions, including once on national television.

These sanctions are likely intended to pressure the world’s largest importers of Iranian crude to reduce their imports or face the possibility of being cut out of the American financial system.

China, South Korea, India, Japan and the European Union will likely be some of the biggest targets for these sanctions, although the European Union has already taken steps to cut off imports in the future.

The sanctions hope to force these nations to “significantly reduce” their oil imports from Iran, although it will remain to be seen if the world will bow under the pressure and follow the American demands.

The White House has attempted to reassure the international community that there is enough oil in the world market to cover the gap created by the reduction of Iranian oil exports.

“There is a sufficient supply of petroleum and petroleum products from countries other than Iran to permit a significant reduction in the volume of petroleum and petroleum products purchased from Iran by or through foreign financial institutions,” Obama claimed.

Although, this would likely result in the United States having to open the strategic petroleum reserve, which is hardly something we would like to do unless it is absolutely necessary.

Obama’s assurances have done little when it comes to reassuring the global market, evidenced by the worldwide rise in oil prices and panics in the United Kingdom.

These rising prices, which directly affect Americans’ wallets when it comes time to fill up our cars with expensive gasoline, have become a hot-button issue in the U.S. presidential campaigns, especially with candidates like Newt Gingrich who has nonsensically claimed that he can magically force gas prices to be $2.50 per gallon.

Anyone who eats up this kind of rhetoric from the likes of Gingrich and other political opportunists likely has absolutely no idea how the political system works, what the President does, and even more importantly how markets work and how prices for goods are determined.

China, which is one of the world’s largest importers of Iranian oil, has resisted the American calls to cut their oil trade with Iran since the latest round of the U.S. sanctions campaign begun.

This issue, along with the South China Sea dispute and the situation with Syria, is a major point of conflict between China and the United States.

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This article first appeared at End the Lie.