Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Newsmax on Wednesday that removing Russia from the SWIFT international financial system for invading Ukraine will show the United States how much China will support Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression.
"We need to find out how much China is going to back Russia in this endeavor," Blackburn said during "American Agenda." "Are they going to soft-land them? Are they going to process their financial transactions? Are they going to become the largest consumer of Russian oil?"
She said helping Russia through the financial hardship the sanction of pulling Russian banks out of performing any transactions by their institutions with their energy industry will let the United States know how far China is willing to go against the west.
"So, being able to gauge that, to kind of put a floor to know how closely aligned they have decided to be in this endeavor to fight the west and the free world and the United States," she said. "That is one of the questions we're trying to get. One way we're trying to gauge that."
In a joint statement with United States allies Feb. 26, the administration of President Joe Biden announced that "selected" Russian banks would be removed from the SWIFT international financial system in addition to other sanctions it had already imposed following the invasion last week.
"We commit to ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system," the statement said. "This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally."
The European Union announced Wednesday it was removing seven Russian banks from the system, VTB, Bank Otrkitie, Novikombank, Promsvyaazbank, Bank Rossiya, Sovcombank, and VEB, Reuters reported.
The SWIFT messaging system underpins global financial transactions between the EU, U.S., Britain, and Canada, according to the report.
Putin and China's President Xi Jinping met in early February before the invasion and pledged to work together on a number of issues, issuing a joint statement regarding their cooperative goals.
That statement on the official Russian government website was no longer available on Wednesday.
However, a Washington Post report at the time said the statement did not mention Ukraine but did say that China opposed the "enlargement of NATO."
"China doesn't want to throw its weight to say it supports Russia's actions on Ukraine, because it doesn't," Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Moscow Center, told the Post at the time.
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