Yellen’s remarks underscore international pressure building on China to condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine, where the United Nations has estimated more than 4.6 million people have become refugees since Russia invaded on February 24.

Disruptions caused by the war has also led the World Bank to warn of “a sharp global slowdown, surging inflation and debt, and a spike in poverty levels”, particularly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Asked about Yellen’s comments, Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said that China “has been committed to promoting peace talks and playing a constructive role in a peaceful settlement of the crisis”.

“Some Western powers, in contrast, have been busy adding fuel to the flame to create new problems while associating the Ukraine crisis with China-Russia relations to shed the responsibility and to exploit the situation for their hidden strategic agenda,” he said.

After seven weeks of war, China has so far failed to convince Washington of its self-proclaimed neutrality, giving experts speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday little faith that Beijing will do anything that might help stop Russia’s assault – even as China’s diplomats claim that the country wants to see an end to the fighting.

“They’re not going to be able to have their cake and eat it too, even though that’s their goal,” said Evan Medeiros, a former China adviser in the Barack Obama administration now teaching at Georgetown University.

China’s support for Russia galvanises West as US examines action against Beijing

“You listen to [Chinese foreign minister] Wang Yi, and he claims China is neutral, but their position is not really neutral when you look at their rhetoric, when you look at their diplomacy, when you look at their sanctions behaviour.”

Medeiros cited comments from Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, notorious among China watchers for his aggressive rhetoric targeting the US, for signalling where China truly stands on the war.

“The language is really striking,” he said. “It’s getting more intensive and more critical of the United States, not less.”

Susan Thornton, a former acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the Donald Trump administration, said that China “should be doing whatever they can to get a ceasefire, and to get humanitarian corridors open”.

“Many people have asked them to do whatever they can on those two items,” she added. “They have been pretty reticent about what they would be willing to do, and I tend to think they will be unlikely to do much in terms of pressuring Putin or Russia.”

The Biden administration further pressed Moscow on Wednesday by announcing another US$800 million worth of weapons, ammunition, and other assistance for Kyiv.

The latest round brings the total outlays of US “security assistance” to Ukraine to more than US$2.5 billion, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

While Yellen expressed hope that the US and its allies could “work with China to try to avert” the emergence of a bipolar economic order, she called for “friend-shoring”, or efforts to build a system that counters practices that allegedly threaten national security and human rights.

“We cannot allow countries to use their market position in key raw materials, technologies or products have the power to disrupt our economy or exercise unwanted geopolitical leverage,” Yellen said.

“Let’s build on and deepen economic integration … on terms that work better for American workers, and let’s do it with the countries we know we can count on.”

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Putin tells ‘unfriendly’ nations to pay in roubles for Russian gas as economic sanctions bite

Putin tells ‘unfriendly’ nations to pay in roubles for Russian gas as economic sanctions bite

Yellen also played down efforts by Moscow, Beijing and their allies to create an economic system that circumvents Western sanctions.

Sanctions by the US and its allies have cut off many Russian banks from the global financial system and put almost half the nation’s US$640 billion in gold and foreign exchange reserves out of reach.

“You see the power of partnership between the United States and our allies and the importance of the dollar, the euro, as currencies in which transactions take place as a tool to impose sanctions that can be immensely costly,” Yellen said.

A video call between the two leaders in December included “special attention paid to the necessity of accelerating efforts on the formation of independent financial infrastructure for servicing trading operations between Russia and China”, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov told the Tass agency at the time.

Yellen, though, remained sceptical: “There are countries that would like to invent a system that freed them of reliance on the dollar, but I think it will be a long time, if ever, before the dollar is replaced as a key reserve currency in the global economy.”