Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Biden administration would be prepared to use all its sanctions tools against China if Beijing moved aggressively toward Taiwan.
“I believe we’ve shown we can impose significant pain on aggressive countries, as evidenced by sanctions against Russia,” Yellen told lawmakers Wednesday as she testified before the House Financial Services Committee. “I think you should not doubt our ability and resolve to do the same in other situations.”
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Yellen was responding to questions from Republican Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina over whether the Treasury would be as willing to use sanctions against China as it has against Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine has undermined confidence that world powers would be able to prevent a crisis from similarly erupting over Taiwan, a democratically governed island of more than 23 million people and key global source of semiconductors.
China has long claimed Taiwan as a renegade province and threatened to invade to prevent its independence.
Last month, China warned the US against trying to build what it called a Pacific version of NATO, while declaring that security disputes over Taiwan and Ukraine were “not comparable at all.”
No country has the right to interfere in Taiwan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Thursday at regular briefing in Beijing, adding: “The Chinese people’s resolve and will to defend our sovereignty and territorial integrity is unwavering.”
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