First, Europe and the US sanctioned over 600 Russian-oil carrying vessels. Stopping European insurers from providing insurance to those vessels unless they accepted the EU price cap on the price that they can sell their oil at. This is the utterly mis-named “shadow fleet”. So Russia moved to insurance and maritime services provided by Russian and other firms, but financial blackmail (weaponizing of US and European financial systems) has stopped the coverage by many global reinsurers.

Now, Hong Kong based insurers are providing insurance for Chinese vessels going through the Strait of Hormuz at better rates than Western insurers. Over time Hong King insurers can develop a maritime insurance and services sector in competition with the Western insurers.

The anti-Russia sanctions and Iran War are forcing Western insurers to cede market share to other jurisdictions. A move that will help remove non-Western fleets (China is the 2nd biggest) remove themselves from the weaponized Western financial system.

And now countries such as the UK and France are working on directly pirating Russian oil tankers, at the very time that the world is experiencing an oil shock. Russia has already cut off fertilizer supplies to the West, will LNG be next in response to these utterly illegal sanctions and pirating? Let alone the drone attack on a Russian LNG carrier in the Mediterranean. The European actions are becoming more and more risky and self-defeating.