On Balance | How China spy balloon row is driving US politics to rare moment of unity

We might have expected hours of the searing criticism that most Republicans – and even some Democrats – have heaped on US President Joe Biden for his decision to wait several days to shoot down the Chinese balloon suspected of spying on sensitive US military installations.

But by the time the committee convened on Thursday, one of the members who never misses an opportunity to drum up fear about Beijing, Republican Senator Ted Cruz, wasn’t there to do so.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, another anti-China firebrand who had sternly condemned the delay, spent a large chunk of his five minutes with a broad statement leading to the conclusion that engagement with China bilaterally and through multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organization had not made Beijing more democratic or peaceful. Hardly provocative or challenging in any way to Biden’s position.

He even appeared to signal some degree of approval by pointing out that the president’s State of the Union address two days earlier “hinted” that the Western world’s engagement with Beijing had failed. Maybe not a ringing endorsement, but it was certainly less acerbic than what he usually has to say about the administration.