Blinken cancels trip to China over spy 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.”