(RepublicanInformer.com)- When Russia invaded its neighbor Ukraine, the United States levied serious economic sanctions on the country and many of its leaders and families to punish them for their actions.
Now, Reuters is reporting that the Biden administration has considered instituting a similar package of sanctions on China as a way to deter it from invading its neighbor, Taiwan.
China claims that the island nation of Taiwan is part of its territory, which is in contrast to how Taiwan and the U.S. view the situation. While the war of rhetoric wages on over the airwaves, China is building up a military presence that looks to be preparing to seize the island at one point — regardless of whether the U.S. military comes to Taiwan’s aid.
Many leaders in Washington are fearful that the confidence that’s been exuded by Xi Jinping, the president of China, will lead him to ultimately make a miscalculation and invade Taiwan — in a similar vein to how Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
According to the Reuters report, the discussions over economic sanctions on China first started not long after Russia invaded Ukraine. They then stepped up in urgency following China holding intense war games near Taiwan in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi making a very public trip in early August to Taipei.
Senior U.S. officials are apparently preparing a detailed, in-depth and serious package of economic sanctions that would immediately go into effect should China decide to invade Taiwan.
The hope, though, is the fact that the U.S. is even preparing these punitive sanctions could be enough to convince Xi to not using force to invade Taiwan.
There is one major challenge to putting these economic sanctions on China, though — the Communist country is the largest trading partner for America, and vice versa. This has led many people in the Biden administration to question whether the economic sanctions are even viable, because of the potential damage they could do to the U.S. economy.
What’s more, the threats of similar economic sanctions did nothing to deter Putin from invading Ukraine. In fact, extra economic sanctions that were passed after Russia invaded Ukraine hasn’t caused him to back down, either.
Reuters reported that the sanctions would need to go beyond decoupling high technology. America has limited already market access to telecom equipment produced in China, as well as restricted exports of semiconductors to China.
When this report was released, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, said that “no foreign country” has a right to interfere with China’s dealings with Taiwan. Beijing essentially views the entire situation an internal, since they consider the island part of China.
Taiwan is trying to convince members of the European Union to prepare similar economic sanctions on China as a further deterrence. The public in Taiwan has for long expressed no interest in having China take over.
While some European countries have already expressed their concerns about the tensions going on between China and Taiwan, putting economic sanctions on China could seriously disrupt trade for them.
