Blinken cancels trip to Beijing because of Chinese spy balloon

However, Blinken said he told Wang that “the United States is committed to diplomatic relations with China and I intend to visit Beijing when circumstances permit.”

“The first step is to remove the surveillance device from our airspace. We are focused on that,” Blinken told reporters.

According to China’s state news agency Xinhua, Wang said the two discussed the incident “in a calm and professional manner”.

“China is a responsible country and has always strictly adhered to international law,” Xinhua quoted Wang as saying to Blinken.

“We will not accept unfounded speculation and hype,” he said, calling on both sides to “prevent misjudgment and manage divergence.”

Blinken is said to have been the first top US diplomat to visit China since October 2018, marking a thaw after intense friction under former President Donald Trump.

Last month, Blinken said he would use the trip to help set up “guard rails” to prevent the relationship from escalating into full-scale conflict.

Republican lawmakers quickly pounced on the balloon incident, leading Biden — who has largely maintained and sometimes expanded Trump’s aggressive policies on China — to be viewed as weak.

“President Biden must stop coddling and appeasing the Chinese communists. Now bring the balloon down and take advantage of the tech package, which could be an intelligence bonanza,” tweeted Sen. Tom Cotton, a prominent hardliner who had urged Blinken to call off his trip.

“Shoot the balloon!” added Donald Trump on his Truth Social media platform.

– China expresses regret –

After some initial hesitation, Beijing admitted ownership of the “airship” and said it had been blown off course by the wind.

“The airship comes from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes,” a State Department spokesman said in a statement.

“The Chinese side regrets the inadvertent entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure,” it said, using the legal term for an act beyond human control.

“The Chinese side will continue to communicate with the US side and handle this unexpected situation well.”

A US defense official said earlier that Biden had asked for military options but that the Pentagon believed bringing down the object would endanger people on the ground from debris.

The balloon has “limited value from an intelligence gathering point of view,” the defense official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The United States is also widely believed to be spying on China, although generally with more advanced technology than balloons.

The Northwestern United States is home to sensitive air bases and nuclear weapons in underground silos.

– Brace yourself for the worst –

In the Philippines, visiting US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin this week agreed to expand the US military presence there, weeks after a separate troop deal with another regional ally, Japan.

The US military actions show that the United States is preparing for a possible conflict over Taiwan, the self-governing democracy that China claims as its own despite diplomatic efforts.

Biden had a surprisingly cordial meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November on the sidelines of a Bali summit, where they agreed to send Blinken to Beijing.

A US military officer recently told his troops to be ready for war with China.

“I hope I’m wrong. My gut tells me we’ll be fighting in 2025,” Air Mobility Command chief General Mike Minihan wrote in a memo, saying the 2024 U.S. election would also provide Xi with a distracted America.

AFP