China has warned the United States that leading a military strike in Syria could almost certainly have a detrimental impact on the global economy.
Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao spoke on Thursday just hours before the Group of 20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia against action in Damascus, on financial grounds.
"It will definitely have a negative impact on the world economy," Zhu said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The International Monetary Fund reported that an organized strike could create an upshot of oil prices-one barrel could potentially shoot up by about $10, which would lead to a worldwide stunted economic growth of around .25 percent.
According to Zhu, the Chinese government insisted that the only way to deal with the Syrian conflict would be through "political and diplomatic" means.
The market has already experienced a plunge due to fears and speculations of a strike on Syria.
Last week, as the White House contemplated its next move on Damascus, crude oil prices hit a six-month high. Benchmark stock indexes, in turn, tumbled.
The price of oil shot up 3.8 percent, to a price of $108.85 a barrel.
The price of Brent crude oil also rose, topping out at more than $111 a barrel.
Fears of all-out warfare between America and Syria fueled the drop in prices, experts said.
Almost immediately after U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel contended that the U.S. was "ready" to perform a strike on Syria, the Dow Jones industrial average fell about 115 points, or .8 percent.
The Nasdaq also fell last week by about 1.5 percent, of 54 points.
According to Again Capital correspondent John Kilduff, who spoke to NBC last Tuesday, Syria is not a major oil-producing country, but its location renders it a key gateway to oil.
"It's clearly become a proxy war for almost the whole region," Kilduff stated. "What's happening is you have Egypt and Syria that are not oil producers...You have a tight market and two significant flash points, and it keeps getting undermined by things like the problems with Libyan oil, the lack of Iranian Oil."
