As US politicians continue to argue about how to re-open its shuttered government and avoid a potentially damaging debt default, China's official news agency says the world should consider "de-Americanising".

After two weeks of brewing anger at Washington's debt brinksmanship, which could place Beijing's multitrillion-dollar US reserves at risk, the Xinhua agency seized on the impasse to say a "new world order" should be put in place in which all nations could be respected on an equal footing.

It is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanised world. 

"It is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanised world," the commentary said. "Instead of honouring its duties as a responsible leading power, a self-serving Washington has abused its superpower status and introduced even more chaos into the world by shifting financial risks overseas, instigating regional tensions amid territorial disputes, and fighting unwarranted wars under the cover of outright lies."

The People's Daily, the Communist Party's mouthpiece, had a strident comment piece, saying: "A country as powerful as the US, especially has no right to use a financial nuclear bomb to frighten the world."

Chinese officials have been restrained in their public comments. But government advisers have suggested the impasse in Washington has provoked deep anger in Beijing and bolstered determination to reduce the world's reliance on the dollar as a reserve currency.