US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
on Friday postponed a trip to Beijing after a Chinese high-altitude balloon,
described as a “intelligence-gathering” airship by the Pentagon and a stray
civilian device by China, was detected floating over the US this week.
اضافة اعلان
The postponement was confirmed by
State Department officials, citing the balloon and speaking on the condition of
anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
Blinken and a deputy spoke with the
Chinese Embassy on Wednesday night, and on Friday morning, Blinken told China’s
top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, that the balloon’s course was a violation
of sovereignty and “unacceptable,” according to a State Department official.
There is no new date for Blinken’s
trip to
Beijing, the official added.
Beijing had sought to defuse
tensions with Washington on Friday over the balloon, expressing its regret over
the incident and saying the balloon was for civilian research and had “deviated
far from its planned course.”
The explanation from the Chinese
Foreign Ministry came after Pentagon officials said Thursday that they had
detected a balloon, “most certainly launched by the People’s Republic of
China,” over Montana, which is home to about 150 intercontinental ballistic
missile silos.
After initially telling a news
conference that it had to check on the claims about the balloon, the ministry
said late Friday in Beijing that the balloon’s course was an innocent mistake.
Force majeure“The airship is from China. It is a
civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes,” an
unidentified spokesperson for the ministry said in a statement on its website.
“Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the
airship deviated far from its planned course. The Chinese side regrets the
unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure.”
“Force majeure” refers to a
violation caused by forces beyond a party’s control.
Neither side has suggested that
Beijing communicated with Washington about the balloon before the controversy
broke out Thursday. But China said in its statement Friday that it would now
talk with US officials about how to “properly handle this unexpected
situation.”
State Department officials noted
China’s explanation of the balloon, but one senior official said the incident
would have narrowed the talks that Blinken and the other American and Chinese
diplomats had planned to hold.
‘Unacceptable and irresponsible’Another State Department official
said the US made clear to Chinese officials that this was an “unacceptable and
irresponsible incident.” The balloon was still over the US on Friday, officials
said.
While the Pentagon played down the
potential value of the balloon for acquiring intelligence, the initial public
reaction by Biden administration officials had underscored how brittle and
delicate relations with Beijing have become, even over one balloon.
The defense secretary, Lloyd Austin,
held a meeting about the balloon with senior US defense officials while he was
in the Philippines, and President Joe Biden “was briefed and asked for military
options,” a Pentagon official told reporters.
China appeared eager to avoid
letting the balloon become a festering irritant during Blinken’s planned
two-day visit to Beijing, which had been scheduled to begin Sunday. Speaking
before China’s statement was issued, Drew Thompson, a former Pentagon official
who is now a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of
Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said the timing of the
balloon flight was at least maladroit.
China is also smarting over the US’
announcement Thursday that it would expand its military presence in the
Philippines, gaining access to four more sites that potentially could be used
to marshal forces to deter or respond to Chinese military threats to Taiwan.
“This balloon surveillance mission
really demonstrates that even when Xi is trying to improve the tone of the relationship
and the rhetoric softens,” Thompson said of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping,
“there is no interest on Beijing’s part to act with restraint or amend its
behavior in ways that actually contribute to genuinely improving the condition
of the relationship.”
After the Chinese Foreign Ministry
issued its explanation, Thompson said: “I don’t think the statement changes the
facts or the violation of US airspace. At best, it is irresponsible.”
China’s Ministry of National
Defense, which usually comments on military issues, did not comment.
“China is a responsible country,
always strictly abides by international law, and has no intention of violating
any sovereign country’s territory or airspace,” Mao Ning, a spokesperson for
China’s Foreign Ministry, told a regular news briefing Friday afternoon.
But she said then that the
authorities needed to check the reports.
The Global Times, a Communist
Party-run newspaper that has become a vehicle for pugnacious, sometimes
quasi-official reactions from Beijing, suggested that the balloon reports were
in line with what it called US efforts to “create a Cold War atmosphere and
exacerbate China-US tensions.”
‘Brazen disregard’Plans for Blinken’s trip to Beijing
firmed up in November, when Biden and Xi met in Bali and agreed to try to rein
in tensions. Volatile strains have built up over Taiwan; technological barriers
and bans; human rights issues in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and resulting American
sanctions on Chinese officials; and, most broadly, over a growing military
rivalry across Asia and the Pacific.
Blinken would be the first US
secretary of state to visit Beijing in over four years. After the balloon news
broke, a chorus of Republican politicians in Washington urged the Biden
administration to take a tougher approach to China.
“China’s brazen disregard for US
sovereignty is a destabilizing action that must be addressed, and President
Biden cannot be silent,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in a statement on Twitter.
McCarthy has said that as speaker he
plans to visit Taiwan — the democratically ruled island that Beijing claims as
its territory — which could prompt China to hold another round of intimidating
military maneuvers near the island, similar to the ones it held last year when
McCarthy’s predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan.
Pentagon officials have refused to
disclose many details about the balloon, including its size and features,
making it harder for outside experts to assess its intent and value.
“We did assess that it was large
enough to cause damage from the debris field if we downed it over an area,” a
senior Department of Defense official told reporters.
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