China 'taking advantage' of Russia-Ukraine crisis: Michael Pillsbury

Hudson Institute Chinese strategy director Michael Pillsbury told FOX Business’ "Mornings with Maria," Wednesday that China is "taking advantage" of the Russia-Ukraine conflict to "grow their own economy."

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MICHAEL PILLSBURY: Xi Jinping and Putin have met more than 30 times. It was Xi Jinping's first foreign trip when he took over China… the Chinese have announced they're not going to observe the sanctions. At the same time, they're providing interbank cross-border facilities to China. They've got their own SWIFT system in China… it's only 10 or 20 percent as big as the real SWIFT, but they're trying to grow it to take advantage of this crisis, in many ways, to grow their own economy. 

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One of their top economists, just yesterday, Justin Yifu Lin, used to be chief economist at the World Bank… He's a key adviser to Xi Jinping. He said yesterday ‘We're going to surpass the Americans ahead of schedule, roughly 2030… seven or eight more years.’ They will have global primacy, and I think their exploitation of this Ukraine invasion is going to be part of the story for how they surpassed us. We just don't seem to understand that China is supporting Putin. 

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