Biden’s balloon parley
China talks to clear air
US President Joe Biden said he expected to hold talks with President Xi Jinping to “get to the bottom” of the issue of the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the US, adding that he did not want a new Cold War.
Mr Biden said he made no apologies for shooting the balloon down but insisted that he was not seeking conflict with China after tit-for-tat sanctions were imposed on defence contractors.
The President also said there was no evidence of Chinese involvement in three unidentified flying objects that were shot down in North American airspace over three consecutive days earlier in the week.
The White House admitted in a statement that no wreckage had been found to identify the objects.
Mr Biden suggested they were probably connected to private companies or organisations that were carrying out harmless research, rather than being used for spying.
“We seek competition, not conflict, with China,” Mr Biden said in his first remarks on the series of downed craft since the balloon and its huge payload was sent crashing into the Atlantic by an American missile on February 4.
“We’re not looking for a new Cold War … this episode underscores the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between our diplomats and our military professionals,” the President added without setting a date for the talks with Mr Xi, whom he last met in November on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali.
“Our diplomats will be engaging further … and I expect to be speaking with President Xi,” Mr Biden said.
“I hope we are going to get to the bottom of this, but I make no apologies for taking down that balloon.”
China put sanctions on the US companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon on Thursday over Taiwan arms sales, banning them from importing, exporting and investing in China.
It came days after the US put restrictions on five Chinese defence companies and a research institute.
“I want to be clear, we don’t have any evidence that there has been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky,” Mr Biden said. “We are now just seeing more of them, partially because the steps we’ve taken to increase our radars, and we have to keep adapting our approach to dealing with these challenges.”
He said he had called for “sharper rules for how we will deal with these unidentified objects … distinguishing between those that are likely to pose safety and security risks that necessitate action and those that do not.”
He added: “But make no mistake, if any object presents a threat to the safety or security of the American people, I will take it down.”
The three objects shot down at lower altitudes than the surveillance balloon over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron were still being assessed, he said.
“We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were. But nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program, or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country.”