Raising the debt ceiling | Beijing hopes for ‘chaos’ on US debt, says Washington

(Washington) The ongoing political tussle over US debt is playing into the hands of China, which likes nothing more than to see “chaos” in the United States, the House budget operations chief warned Thursday. -White.

“They like it. They love the chaos in the American system. They like to see that we can’t perform our most basic tasks,” Shalanda Young said during the daily White House briefing of China’s arch-rival.

The senior official felt that this issue of US debt was part of a larger question: “What works in the world? Does democracy still work? Or does the Chinese model work? »

The Biden administration and the Republican parliamentary opposition are engaged in a standoff over the public debt ceiling, as the clock ticks towards a possible US default, which could occur from June 1.

The US Congress must regularly vote to raise this famous public debt ceiling. President Joe Biden is asking Republicans to do so unconditionally, but the opposition is demanding cuts in public spending in exchange.

The director of American intelligence Avril Haines, she estimated Thursday before a Senate committee that China but also Russia would “take advantage” of a financial cataclysm in the United States to affirm that the first world power “is not capable to function as a democracy. »

A U.S. default would, regardless of its duration, generate “international uncertainty about the value of the dollar and about U.S. institutions,” thereby creating “volatility” in markets tied to the U.S. currency, she said. warned.

The White House had already published on Wednesday a very bleak scenario in the event of a default on the American public debt – which has never happened yet – by predicting a 45% drop in the stock markets, a recession of historic proportions and a explosion of unemployment.