US tipped to reschedule Blinken’s China trip once balloon turbulence dies down: analysts
- Both countries are keen to keep up high-level dialogue to manage their differences, observers say
- China’s top diplomat calls for calm and to avoid speculation
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken may not wait long to visit China, with both Beijing and Washington to look for a chance to reschedule once tension over a suspected surveillance balloon eases, according to analysts.
US President Joe Biden had told reporters earlier on Saturday that “we’re going to take care of it,” when asked about the balloon.
Without referring directly to the balloon, the Chinese foreign ministry said that in a phone call on Friday Wang, a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo, and Blinken discussed how to handle the “accidental incident” in a calm and professional manner.
“China is a responsible country and has always strictly abided by international law. We do not accept any groundless speculation and hype,” the ministry quoted Wang as saying.
“In the face of unexpected situations, what both parties need to do is to maintain concentration, communicate in a timely manner, avoid misjudgments, and manage and control differences.”
01:51
China’s top diplomat urges US to ‘avoid misjudgment’ as Blinken trip postponed over balloon issue
In a separate statement on Saturday, the ministry said some US politicians and media had used the incident to smear China, which Beijing “resolutely opposed”.
Blinken was expected to be the first US secretary of state to visit China since 2018 as part of an agreement between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to boost high-level communication.
Blinken to reschedule China trip once balloon turbulence dies down: analysts
In Washington on Friday, Blinken said he told Wang that the presence of the balloon in US airspace clearly violated US sovereignty and international law.
“[China’s] decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have,” he said.
But he said he planned to visit Beijing when conditions allowed and that the US would continue to maintain lines of communication with China to address the balloon situation and other issues.
Tensions here to stay as US pressures China ahead of Blinken trip: analysts
Observers said Wang’s remark indicated that Beijing leadership and the White House would resume the postponed trip once the controversy died down, with both sides keen on continuing high-level dialogue.
They said the Biden administration was under mounting pressure from Republicans to get tough on Beijing over the incident, and might be seen as bowing to Beijing if Blinken went ahead with his trip.
Zhou Chenming, a researcher at the Beijing-based Yuan Wang military technology and science think tank, said the balloon controversy was just “a small accident taking place in a sensitive time”.
“Beijing is understanding of the postponement,” Zhou said.
03:06
Pentagon says it is tracking ‘Chinese spy balloon’ in US ahead of Blinken’s first trip to Beijing
Pentagon officials said the Chinese high-altitude balloon was flying over sensitive sites to collect information, including the state of Montana, which is home to about 150 intercontinental ballistic missile silos.
But Beijing said it was a civilian airship for meteorological research that had accidentally strayed from its planned course into American airspace because of strong westerly winds and its limited self-steering capacity.
The Pentagon later said there was another balloon over Latin America.
Several Republicans called for the Pentagon to ground the balloon over the US.
Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana tweeted that the balloon should be brought down, calling it a “clear provocation”.
Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations who is expected to run for president in 2024, also sought aggressive action.
“Shoot down the balloon. Cancel Blinken’s trip. Hold China accountable,” she tweeted on Friday.
“Biden is letting China walk all over us. It’s time to make America strong again.”
Beijing urges US to ‘end obsession with containing China’
Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said he believed the Chinese airship was used for collecting data in US airspace without permission.
“It is flying over ballistic missile bases, conducting surveillance and collecting intelligence,” he said.
“China conducting a surveillance mission in US airspace underscores the hypocrisy of Beijing’s objections and unsafe intercepts of surveillance planes in international air space well beyond China’s territorial limits.”
But Chinese observers said using balloons for close-in reconnaissance was an old surveillance measure, and it was hard to conclude whether the balloon was an intelligence-gathering balloon.
Zhou said China did not need to use surveillance airships because it had spy satellites.
“[But] the balloon controversy has exposed China’s shortcomings in controlling the airship,” he added.
Macau-based military observer Antony Wong Tong said the US had started using intelligence-gathering balloons to spy on the former Soviet Union and China during the Cold War.
“The high-profile disclosure of the intrusion of a Chinese spy airship is aimed at embarrassing China as the controversy will further stir up the ‘China-threat theory’ in the American public,” Wong said.
Additional reporting by Orange Wang, Robert Delaney, Khushboo Razdan and Teddy Ng
