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Remarks follow calls by President Xi on national security
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Unusual for the PBOC to comment on foreign policy
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Xi says "frontrunners" should help others in their development
(Updates with Chinese president Xi's remarks)
BEIJING, March 15 (Reuters) - The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said on Wednesday it will "appropriately" respond to U.S. and Western "containment and suppression", in a rare warning by the central bank following calls by President Xi Jinping to safeguard national security.
It is unusual for the central bank to comment on foreign policy given its responsibility is finance, suggesting that China is signalling it is ready to deploy a wide range of countermeasures in response to increasing tension with the West.
The PBOC will "appropriately deal with the containment and suppression of the United States and the West", the bank said in a statement published following an internal Communist Party committee study session.
Relations between the world's two largest economies have been tense for years but worsened last month after the United States shot down a balloon off the U.S. east coast that it says was a Chinese spying craft.
While the U.S. has maintained it seeks to establish guardrails for the relationship, Xi has spoken of a need to "improve the national security system" and "build the people's army into a great wall of steel that effectively safeguards national sovereignty, security and development interests".
China's President Xi said on Wednesday that "frontrunners" should sincerely support other countries in their development, Chinese state media Xinhua reported.
"One will not be seen in a more favourable light after blowing out others' lamps, nor will they go further by blocking others' paths," Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.
Xi made the remarks in a keynote address delivered at a meeting with world political parties.
He added that, in pursuit of modernization, China will neither tread the old path of colonisation and plunder, nor the "crooked" path taken by some countries to seek hegemony once they grow strong, according to Xinhua.
"EXTERNAL SHOCKS AND RISKS"
China last week announced sweeping government reform, including the establishment of a new financial regulatory body that would take over some supervisory functions from the PBOC.
The setting up of a national financial regulatory administration comes as Beijing seeks to rein in large corporate and financial institutions to shore up its economy in the face of "external shocks and risks", as the foreign exchange regulator characterised the challenges facing the economy on Wednesday in a separate statement.