Washington- Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a weekend trip to Beijing on Friday after a Chinese high-altitude balloon, described as an “intelligence gathering” aircraft by the Pentagon, and a civilian device misplaced by China , was detected hovering over the United States this week.
The cancellation was the culmination of a diplomatic clash over the globe that had been unfolding since at least Wednesday, and the episode adds to rising tensions between the two superpowers. It also underscores the delicate politics in the United States, as Democratic and Republican leaders compete to be seen as quite aggressive towards China.
Blinken had planned to leave Friday night for the trip, the first visit by a US secretary of state to China since 2018. He was expected to meet President Xi Jinping and discuss a wide range of topics. But Blinken said he called Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s top foreign policy official, on Friday and told him he was postponing his trip because of the balloon.
Some Republican lawmakers criticized President Joe Biden on Thursday for allowing the balloon to float for days over the United States and failing to crack down on China.
White House officials said such balloons have appeared over US territory before, including during the Trump administration.
“I have made it clear that the presence of the surveillance balloon in United States airspace is a clear violation of United States sovereignty and international law, that it is an irresponsible act, and that the decision of the People’s Republic of China 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 press conference on Friday afternoon, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
“The first step is to remove the surveillance asset from our airspace,” he added.
The balloon was over Montana Thursday and by noon Friday had reached Kansas, where it sometimes hovered and sometimes moved 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 the deployment of aircraft.
Biden may still decide to shoot it down, a Pentagon official said, but likely not until the balloon is over water, likely over the Atlantic Ocean, given the southeast direction it has been heading.
“At this time, we assess that there is no threat, physical or military, to people on the ground,” Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday.
Blinken and Wendy Sherman, assistant secretary of state, spoke with the Chinese embassy Wednesday night about the balloon, and US diplomats in Beijing spoke with Chinese officials there, State Department officials said. They and Pentagon officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to sensitivities about the globe.
Blinken said Friday that he told Wang he would visit China “when conditions allow.”
Pentagon officials said that while other surveillance balloons have flown over the United States in recent years, this one has lasted longer than any before.
The Chinese government expressed its regret over the incident, saying the balloon was for civilian research and had “deviated greatly from its planned course.” The statement appeared to be an effort to keep Blinken’s visit on track.
Chinese officials had anticipated 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 sparked protests last fall and worsened the economic slowdown. Planning for the trip began after Xi met Biden on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations have taken a combative stance toward China, saying the Chinese Communist Party is intent on undermining the US-led world order.
Biden has vastly expanded efforts to hinder China’s technological advances. And he has worked with allies and partners across Asia, including Taiwan, the de facto independent island claimed by China, to bolster military forces in the event of an armed conflict with China.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in Manila that the US military would begin using up to nine bases in the Philippines to temporarily house troops and equipment, a move aimed at deterring China from attempting to invade Taiwan or undertake further military actions in the South China Sea.
Biden administration officials are sensitive to any suggestion 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 filed several Blinken lawsuits after news of the globe emerged 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, an Arkansas Republican, wrote online that Blinken should cancel his trip.
Biden is scheduled to deliver his annual State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday.
Jessica Chen Weiss, a Cornell University political scientist who recently worked at 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 of the trip, that the potential upside should have been outweighed by the domestic political risks of visiting Beijing amid congressional outrage,” he said.
Daniel Russell, former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific and vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said that “the administration was clearly not satisfied with the Chinese government’s public expression of regret, perhaps because Beijing insisted on hiding behind a laughable alibi that it was a weather balloon blown off course.”
“This incident has soured the atmosphere and hardened positions, and there is no guarantee that the two sides can successfully revive the Bali momentum,” he added.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s explanation came after Pentagon officials said on Thursday they had detected a balloon, “most likely launched by the People’s Republic of China,” over Montana, which is home to around 150 ICBM silos.
After initially telling reporters that it had to verify the claims about the balloon, the ministry said late Friday in Beijing that the balloon’s course was an accident.
“The aircraft is from China. It is a civil aircraft that is used for research purposes, mainly meteorological,” an unnamed spokesperson for the ministry said in a statement on its website. “Affected by westerly winds and with limited self-steering capabilities, the aircraft deviated greatly from its planned course. The Chinese side regrets the unintentional entry of the aircraft into the airspace of the United States due to force majeure.”
“Force Majeure” means a breach caused by forces beyond the control of one of the parties.
The ministry said it would talk to US officials about how to “properly handle this unexpected situation.”
“It’s a plausible explanation, but it’s absurd that they didn’t guess that it would end up in North America,” said Lynn McMurdie, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington who modeled the balloon’s flight path.
“With the weather pattern right now, we have a pretty strong jet across the Pacific, and something originating in China would end up in Montana,” he added. “Why wouldn’t they know it would end up here?”
The balloon, which sometimes moves as high as 60,000 feet above the ground, has solar panels that officials believe power its propulsion. It is also equipped with cameras and other surveillance equipment.
Ryder called the balloon “maneuverable” but declined to say explicitly that China was still operating the balloon.
“We assess that it will probably be over the United States for a few days,” he said.
