"They love to see chaos in the American system," senior White House economics official Shalanda Young told reporters. "They love to see that we can't do our basic jobs."
Republicans in Congress and President Joe Biden's Democrats are running out of time to agree on how to authorize more borrowing or face the country's first ever debt default, likely sparking severe economic disruption in the United States and around the world.
Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said this is "no less than a test of what works in this world. Does democracy still work, or does the Chinese way work?"
Earlier, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines also warned that China and Russia are hoping to stoke perceptions of the United States as dysfunctional.
"I think, generally, both Russia and China would look to perceive -- sort of narrate -- through information operations such an event as demonstrating the chaos within the United States, that we're not capable of functioning as a democracy, and the governance issues associated with it," Haines told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Default would "almost certainly" promote "global uncertainty about the value of the US dollar and US institutions and leadership," she said.
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