(Bloomberg) -- Republicans introduced legislation to trigger punitive sanctions against China in the event of a Taiwan invasion as tensions between Washington and Beijing escalated over a US visit by the self-ruled island’s president.
Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin are sponsoring the bill, which would mandate sweeping sanctions against Chinese financial institutions and industrial sectors and prohibit US financial institutions from investing in any entity deemed to benefit the Chinese Communist party, if China were to invade Taiwan.
Gallagher is the chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
Prospects for the measure are unclear. The legislation didn’t pass during the last Congress and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, whose panel has jurisdiction over the measure, said he had “not been consulted on that bill.”
But the legislation is being introduced as Taiwan again becomes a flashpoint in the relationship between Washington and Beijing.
China has warned that a visit to the US by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen will further damage relations with Washington, already undermined by a recent dispute over an alleged spy balloon. Inflaming matters more, Tsai is set to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles next week.
Tsai said at a dinner banquet Wednesday after landing in New York that the security of the world hinges on her self-ruled island’s fate.
Sullivan and Gallagher presented their legislation as a critical deterrent to Chinese aggression against Taiwan.
The legislation would show Beijing “the U.S. will not hesitate to respond with crippling and comprehensive economic sanctions on any person or company supporting a CCP invasion of Taiwan,” Gallagher said in a statement.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Advertisement