US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has canceled a weekend visit to China after the Pentagon said it found a Chinese spy balloon flying over a sensitive nuclear missile site in the western state of Montana.
The US’s top diplomat is set to travel to Beijing where he is expected to meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping. He will be the first Biden administration cabinet secretary to visit China and the first secretary of state to travel to the country in more than five years.
Speaking at the state department after canceling the trip, Blinken said the presence of the Chinese balloon was an “irresponsible act” and “a clear violation of US sovereignty and international law”.
“The decision of the People’s Republic of China to take this action on the eve of the planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussion that we were prepared to have,” Blinken added.
The about-face comes after the Pentagon on Thursday said a Chinese spy balloon had entered US airspace this week and flown over Montana, home to one of the sensitive bases that houses nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Pentagon on Friday afternoon said the US had found a second Chinese spy balloon over Latin America.
China’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday said it was “a matter for the US” to decide when the delegation would visit Beijing, adding that politicians and the media had “hyped” the incident to “attack and deceive China”.
Beijing has rejected suggestions that it was a spy balloon, saying it was rather a “civilian airship used for research, especially meteorological purposes” that deviated from the planned path due to wind and “limited self-steering capabilities”.
“China regrets the inadvertent entry of aircraft into US airspace because force majeure“he said.
Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder on Friday said the balloon was flying east and over the central US. He declined to say whether the Chinese military controlled the balloon, but said US military commanders had determined there was no physical threat to civilians in the field.
Asked about China’s explanation, he said: “We know it’s a surveillance balloon.” He said he would stay in the US for a few days.
A senior state department official said Blinken spoke with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, on Friday to inform him that he was canceling the trip, which was due to begin later this week. The official said the administration had raised concerns about the balloon with China on Wednesday in Washington.
“We have made it clear to our Chinese counterparts that this is an unacceptable and irresponsible incident,” the official said.
US officials say China has launched a spy balloon over the country, but this is more time on top. The US said it had taken steps to ensure the balloons did not get sensitive military information.
Canada separately said it was monitoring a “potential second incident”. The foreign ministry said it had summoned China’s ambassador in Ottawa to protest the balloon and would “continue to strongly express our position to Chinese officials through multiple channels”.
Mike Gallagher, the Republican head of the new House China committee, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the panel, criticized Beijing over the incident, saying the Chinese Communist Party “should not have on-demand access to American airspace”.
“Not only is this a violation of American sovereignty. . . but it also makes it clear that the CCP’s recent diplomatic overtures do not represent a substantial change in policy,” the legislature said in a joint statement.
Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House foreign affairs committee, told the Financial Times that the US should remove the balloons from its airspace. He said US officials admitted they had been monitoring the balloon since it flew over the Aleutian Islands where it “could easily have been shot down over the water”.
“Allowing it to remain on US soil not only threatens the privacy of every American, but sends a very dangerous message to the Chinese Communist Party and other adversaries that this aggressive attack is acceptable,” he said.
The discovery of the balloon suddenly complicated Washington and Beijing’s efforts to stabilize their tumultuous relationship. When US President Joe Biden met China’s Xi on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali in November, the leaders agreed that the two powers should try to set a floor in their relationship, which has sunk to its lowest level since the two countries established diplomatic ties. in 1979.
Biden has asked the Pentagon to give it a military option on the balloon, but the administration decided not to launch it because of the risk to people on the ground, as well as an assessment that the balloon did not provide intelligence to China that it could not gather. in other words, including from low Earth orbit satellites.