It was reported unofficially during the Korean War that when the Treasury Department blocked Communist Chinese financial assets, it also knowingly blocked some non-Communist assets as a means of immunizing the owners against extortionate threats against their relatives still in China. Quite likely, for owners located in the United States, the very penalties on transfer of funds to Communist China enhanced their capacity to resist extortion.

XREF: Ties to understanding how sanctions and financial controls produce unintended protective side effects alongside their intended coercive purpose.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 359