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U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday he expects to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping about what the United States says was a Chinese spy balloon shot down by a U.S. fighter jet earlier this month after it transited the United States.
“We are not looking for a new Cold War,” Biden said.
Biden, in his most recent remarks about the Chinese balloon and the three unidentified objects brought down by US fighters, did not say whether he would speak to Xi, but said the United States continued to engage diplomatically with China on the issue.
“I’m looking forward to talking to President Xi, hopefully we’ll figure it out, but I’m not apologizing for deflating the balloon,” Biden said in response to complaints from Beijing.
China said the 60-meter balloon was for monitoring weather conditions, but Washington said it was a surveillance balloon with a large undercarriage containing electronics.
Biden, who has made few public comments about the spate of aerial objects that began with Chinese balloons, fell silent after lawmakers demanded more information about the incident, surprising many Americans.
He said the US intelligence community was still trying to learn more about three unidentified objects: one shot down in Alaska, one over Canada and a third that plunged into Lake Huron. The government said they were down because of a threat to civil aviation.
“We don’t know exactly what these three objects are, but at this time there is no indication that they are related to China’s spy balloon program or that they are surveillance vehicles from other countries,” Biden said.
Objects most likely to be ‘tied to private companies’
The intelligence community believes the object is “likely a balloon tied to a private enterprise, recreation or research agency,” Biden said.
Biden said the sighting may have been due to improved radar in response to the Chinese balloon.
“That’s why I have directed the team to come back to me with clearer rules on how we will handle these unknown objects moving forward, distinguishing between those that may cause security and safety risks that require action and those that do not.”
The remarks came amid reports that a Chinese balloon crashed on February 4 after crossing the continental United States originally on a trajectory that would have taken it over Guam and Hawaii but was blown away by prevailing winds.
The incident prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a planned visit to Beijing, where both sides are seeking to stabilize existing ties. Blinken’s scheduled attendance at the Munich Security Conference this weekend has fueled speculation that he may meet with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi there.
John Bolton, national security adviser during the Trump administration, said on Twitter that he had been briefed on Wednesday by the US intelligence community and remained “very concerned about the Biden Administration’s handling of this potential national security threat,” citing what he called. a “change of storyline.”
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that US military and intelligence agencies tracked the balloon as it departed from China’s southern island province of Hainan. It was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, and American lawmakers slammed the administration for allowing it to fly over the country for the first time, including near sensitive military bases.
Beijing criticizes Washington
Asked earlier about Biden’s remarks, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman on Thursday again referred to the downed balloon as an “unmanned civilian airship,” and said the flight into US airspace was an “isolated” incident.
The US “must be willing to meet China in the middle, manage differences and appropriately handle unexpected and unexpected events to avoid misunderstandings and mistakes; and promote the return of US-China relations to a healthy and stable development path,” the spokesman said. Wang Wenbin. reporters at regular briefings.
Beijing has criticized Washington for overreacting by shooting down the balloons, and warned of “countermeasures against relevant US entities that undermine China’s sovereignty and security.”
On Thursday, China placed Lockheed Martin Corp and a unit of Raytheon Technologies Corp on an “untrusted entity list” over arms sales to Taiwan, banning China-related imports and exports in the latest round of sanctions against US companies.
Searching for downed objects in the Yukon
There have been four mysterious objects shot down over North America in the past month. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday that a team was used to “find and analyze” an object shot down over the Yukon, while another object was destroyed over Lake Huron by the US military.
“The safety of Canadians is our No. 1 priority, so I decided to take out the object. It is a threat to civil aviation and a potential threat to Canada,” Trudeau said in a briefing on Sunday morning.
Search teams are currently scouring Lake Huron and the Yukon region looking for debris from two of the three unidentified objects shot down in North America. Officials said the objects all appeared to be floating, had no bodies and no known propulsion systems.
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