Blinken Blasts ‘Irresponsible’ Chinese Spy-Balloon Release in Call with CCP Official
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday blasted China’s “irresponsible” decision to send a spy balloon into the airspace of the United States in a call with a Chinese Communist Party official.
In deploying the contraption, China jeopardized already-fractured relations with the U.S., Blinken suggested during the discussion with Wang Yi, the director of the CCP central foreign-affairs office. Blinken also confirmed to the official that he would be canceling his upcoming visit to Beijing in light of the incident.
“I made clear that the presence of this surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace is a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law, that it’s an irresponsible act and that the PRC decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have,” Blinken said in a statement obtained by Fox News.
“The Secretary explained that in light of this ongoing issue, it would not be appropriate to visit Beijing at this time. He underscored that the United States is committed to diplomatic engagement and maintaining open lines of communication, and that he would be prepared to visit Beijing as soon as conditions allow,” spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
On Thursday, the Defense Department revealed that a Chinese spy balloon had been spotted over the U.S. by civilians on an airplane this week. President Biden initially ordered that it be shot down, but he was rebuffed by the Pentagon, which feared that such action could cause civilian casualties on the ground, the Wall Street Journal reported. The balloon entered the U.S. over Alaska before it flew over Canada and moved to Montana, where it was seemingly monitoring the Malmstrom Air Force Base, the site of nuclear-missile silos, a senior defense official told NBC.
The Chinese foreign ministry responded to the episode on Friday, saying it “regrets that the airship strayed into the United States by mistake.” However, Pentagon spokesman General Pat Ryder rejected Chinese officials’ explanation that the suspected spy balloon was merely a civilian craft used for meteorological research purposes.
Ryder said: “We know that it’s a surveillance balloon.” When asked by a reporter why the U.S. doesn’t remove the balloon from the sky since it’s violating U.S. airspace, Ryder replied: “We assessed that it does not pose a risk to people on the ground as it is traversing the continental United States.”
During a press conference with the South Korean president Friday, Blinken expressed his doubt in Beijing’s claims that the balloon was a civilian device that had veered off course into the U.S.
