Blinken cancels China visit over balloon
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday canceled a weekend trip to Beijing after a Chinese high-altitude balloon, described as an “intelligence-gathering” airship by the Pentagon and a stray civilian device by China, was detected floating over the United States this week.
The cancellation was the culmination of a diplomatic clash over the balloon that had been unfolding since at least Wednesday, and the episode adds to rising tensions between the two superpowers. It also underscored the sensitive politics in the United States as both Democratic and Republican leaders vie to be seen as sufficiently hawkish on China.
Blinken had planned to leave Friday night for the trip, the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to China since 2018. He had been expected to meet with President Xi Jinping and discuss a wide range of issues. But Blinken said he called Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s top foreign policy official, on Friday and said he was postponing his trip because of the balloon.
“I made clear that the presence of the surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace is a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law, that it’s an irresponsible act and that the PRC decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have,” Blinken said at a news conference Friday afternoon, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
“The first step is getting the surveillance asset out of our airspace,” he added.
Some Republican lawmakers criticized President Joe Biden on Thursday for allowing the balloon to drift for days over the United States and not taking harsher measures against China. White House officials said such balloons have appeared over U.S. territory before, including during the Trump administration.
The balloon was above Montana on Thursday, and by midday on Friday it had reached Kansas, where it was sometimes hovering and sometimes moving at speeds of up to 70 mph, Pentagon officials said. The United States was using its own surveillance methods to monitor and study the machine, including deploying aircraft.
Biden may yet decide to shoot it down, a Pentagon official said, but he will likely not do so until the balloon is above water, probably over the Atlantic Ocean, given the southeasterly direction it has been heading.
“Right now, we assess that there is no threat, no physical threat or military threat, to people on the ground,” Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, said Friday.
Blinken and Wendy Sherman, deputy secretary of state, spoke with the Chinese Embassy on Wednesday night about the balloon, and American diplomats in Beijing spoke with Chinese officials there, State Department officials said. They and Pentagon officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities over the balloon.
Blinken said Friday that he told Wang he would visit China “when conditions allow.”
Pentagon officials said that while other surveillance balloons have hovered over the United States in recent years, this one has lingered longer than any previous ones.
The Chinese government expressed its regret over the incident and asserted that the balloon was for civilian research and had “deviated far from its planned course.” The statement appeared to be an effort to keep Blinken’s visit on track.
Chinese officials had been anticipating the visit as an important moment to mark China’s reopening to the world after Xi decided in December to end his “zero COVID” policy, which had led to protests last fall and worsened an economic slowdown. Planning for the trip began after Xi met with Biden on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations have adopted a combative stance toward China, saying that the Chinese Communist Party is intent on undermining the U.S.-led world order. Biden has greatly expanded efforts to hobble China’s technological advancements. And he has worked with allies and partners across Asia, including with Taiwan, the de facto independent island that China claims, to bolster military forces in the event of an armed conflict with China.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in Manila that the U.S. military would begin using as many as nine bases across the Philippines for temporary housing of troops and equipment, a move aimed at deterring China from trying to invade Taiwan or take further military action in the South China Sea.
Biden administration officials are sensitive to any suggestions that they are not taking a hard line against China. But Blinken insisted Friday that national security concerns were the reasons behind his decision to cancel the trip.
Republican officials laid out various demands of Blinken after news of the balloon emerged on Thursday.
A post on the official Twitter account of Republican lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said it was “imperative” that Blinken tell Xi and his government that “their military adventurism will no longer be tolerated.” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote online that Blinken should cancel his trip.
Biden is scheduled to give his annual State of the Union speech in Congress on Tuesday.
Jessica Chen Weiss, a political scientist at Cornell University who recently worked in the State Department on China policy, said the decision to cancel Blinken’s trip “reflects the unfortunate triumph of symbolism over substance.”
“It also confirms the low expectations going into the trip, that the potential upside should have been so outweighed by the domestic political risks of visiting Beijing amid congressional outrage,” she said.
Daniel Russel, a former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific and a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said “the administration clearly was dissatisfied with the Chinese government’s public expression of regret — perhaps because Beijing insisted on hiding behind the laughable alibi that this was a weather balloon blown off course.”
The balloon, sometimes moving at around 60,000 feet above the ground, has solar panels that officials think power its propulsion. It is also outfitted with cameras and other surveillance equipment.
Ryder called the balloon “maneuverable,” but declined to explicitly say that China was still operating the balloon.
“We assess that it will probably be over the United States for a few days,” he said.