CHINESE President Xi Jinping launched a blistering attack on the “wanton unilateral use of sanctions” and the “weaponisation of trade” at the annual Asian Boao summit today.

The meeting, which is sometimes called the “Asian Davos” for its bringing together of many of the continent’s top political and business leaders, is significant as Asia now represents almost half the world’s economic output and is by far its fastest-growing region, Chinese officials said.

President Xi proposed a new “global security initiative” based on the territorial integrity of all countries guaranteed by agreements that “oppose the building of national security on the basis of insecurity in other countries,” thought to be a reference to the war in Ukraine.

China has called for peace talks to end the Russian invasion, but said Russia’s worries about Nato expansion in eastern Europe are legitimate.

It has attacked the US’s unilateral use of sanctions repeatedly, over Cuba, Venezuela and Iran as well as more recently against Russia. 

China’s ambassador to the UN this week attacked the freezing of other countries’ assets as a violation of sovereignty that “undermines world economic stability.”

The US has frozen some Russian assets following the invasion of Ukraine, and has previously stolen frozen assets belonging to other countries such as Afghanistan.

Like most countries China has rejected calls to impose sanctions on Russia, but the US’s huge economic weight deters many companies from doing business with Russia even if their governments do not object.

Yesterday Chinese credit card processor UnionPay said it would not work with Russian banks for fear of retaliation by the US.