How a hot air balloon disrupted the US Secretary of State's visit to China US

Secretary of Statepostponed a visit to CHINA after the discovery of a Chinese balloon in US airspace. Washington made the decision, fearing accusations of softness, but Beijing will perceive it as cowardice,

How a balloon disrupted Blinken and Xi talks in Beijing

At the end of the week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was expected in China, during the visit scheduled for February 5-6, he was supposed to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The visit at this level is the first since President Joe Biden came to power.

The last time US Secretary of State, then Mike Pompeo, visited China five years ago, during the presidency of Donald Trump, but Xi did not accept him. The agreement on Blinken's trip was reached in November last year at the summit of the leaders of the two countries, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, which they held via video link.

However, a few hours before flying to China from SOUTH KOREA, where he was, Blinken canceled the visit. The Secretary of State's plans were thwarted by the balloon incident. It was known about the appearance of a flying object on February 2 from Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder, who said that the department had been tracking a balloon in the sky of Montana for several days (there is one of the US bases with nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles) in the north of the country.

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He added that they decided not to shoot down the object because of the risks to the civilian population. The balloon is expected to stay in US airspace for a few more days. At the same time, as an unnamed senior military official told CBS News, the aircraft is loaded with observation equipment the size of two or three school buses, and he himself is even larger.

The appearance of a Chinese reconnaissance balloon  in U.S. airspace is a “striking incident” amid growing tensions between the two powers , The Washington Post notes . The Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed that the balloon belongs to China, but indicated that it was a civilian object used for meteorological purposes, which deviated from the course. "China regrets that the balloon entered (airspace) the United States due to force majeure [...] and will continue to communicate with the United States to properly handle the unexpected situation," the tweet said on Friday. Chinese Foreign Ministry statement.

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On the same day, Blinken phoned Wang Yi, HEAD of the office of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the CPC Central Committee. The Secretary of State explained that in light of this unresolved issue, it would not be appropriate to visit Beijing at this time,” State Department spokesman Ned Price relayed the contents of the conversation.

Photo: Michael Alverson / REUTERS

Why Blinken's visit to China was important

Blinken's talks in Beijing were supposed to have two goals: to find ways to stabilize relations between the US and China and a way to minimize unintended conflict between the world's two largest economies, The Washingtin Post points out. The newspaper cites Blinken's statements in January, in which he indicated the need to establish dividing lines in order to avoid a diplomatic or military confrontation.

At the same time, the views of the parties on how the potential conflict management system should look differ. The balloon incident is one example where the parties might need such a system, the newspaper emphasizes.

Photo: Michael Alverson / Reuters

Even before the balloon incident, U.S. officials privately acknowledged that the prospects for any significant breakthrough in U.S.-China relations following Blinken's visit to Beijing were minimal and that the visit would be more symbolic than substantive, The Wall Street Journal noted. . According to the publication, Washington expected to achieve at least insignificant, but concrete results, including a joint fight against the production and trafficking of fentanyl and a decision to increase the number of visas for journalists and other professionals.

Fentanyl is a strong opioid whose production has been tightly controlled in China since 2019, but other countries, such as Mexico, buy raw materials for its manufacture mainly in China, after which the drug is illegally imported into the United States, CNN explained the importance of the topic.

The Diplomat also emphasizes that neither Washington nor Beijing expected a breakthrough in bilateral relations following Blinken's visit. However, if the United States considered the Secretary of State’s trip to be timely, then China did not agree with such an assessment - it is no coincidence that the official representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, a few days before the visit, refused not only to talk about the details, but also to confirm the very fact of it. 

The experts explainedwhy is it difficult for US air defense to shoot down a probe from China Politics

How the parties complicated relations before the visit

The reason for Beijing's coldness was a number of recent steps and statements made by the United States, which could be considered by the PRC leadership as an attempt to exert pressure. Among them are the words of General Michael Minihan about the possible outbreak of war between China and the United States in 2025 over Taiwan and the plans of the Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy to visit Taipei, following the example of his predecessor Nancy Pelosi. Then a trip to the island, which China considers part of its territory, led to a serious aggravation of relations with the United States and the beginning of unplanned military exercises of the PRC near Taiwan.

The Diplomat, citing Chinese experts, also points to other “anti-Chinese steps” by the Biden administration, which call into question the advisability of negotiating with the United States as a whole. Among them are the supply of weapons to Taiwan, a complete ban on the EXPORT of US technology to HUAWEI and a ban on the sale of chips to Beijing.

The atmosphere before Blinken's visit to Beijing was compared by the magazine to the tension that existed five years ago during a similar trip by Pompeo. Then the Trump administration launched a trade war against China, imposing duties on a number of goods imported from the country. A characteristic result of the visit was that Xi did not receive the Secretary of State, and the latter had to confine himself to negotiations with then Foreign Minister Wang Yi. After Biden came to power, the presidential administration continued the policy of containing China, laid down by his predecessor. Wang Yi's 2021 visit to Alaska for talks with Blinken and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was also not productive.

The hostility of the Chinese establishment towards Blinken also plays a role. The Secretary of State has made a career in the Democratic Party for many years, and therefore Beijing is convinced that he is not suitable for the role of a person capable of building a foreign policy concept in relations with China.

“The visit was needed not to improve relations, but to agree on the rules of conduct, the establishment of hotlines in case of unforeseen incidents, these were negotiations in the spirit of the USSR and the usa during the Cold War,” the DIRECTOR of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies HSE Vasily Kashin. He draws attention to the fact that before the talks, the parties took a series of confrontational steps: the United States imposed additional restrictions on Huawei - the US Department of Commerce will not issue licenses to Qualcomm, Intel and other American companies to sell their solutions to a Chinese company, and the Chinese side is discussing measures to tighten exports products used to produce key components of solar panels (silicon ingots and silicon wafers), China has a monopoly in this industry.

How the Republicans used the ball to attack

The appearance of the ball gave the opposition Republican Party to Biden another reason for criticism. “China's brazen disregard for US sovereignty is a destabilizing act that must be combated. President Biden cannot be silent,” Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican, wrote on Twitter. He convened a briefing by the so-called Gang of Eight, a group of high-ranking representatives of the lower and upper houses of Congress who have the right to get acquainted with intelligence information held by the White House administration.

Former US President Donald Trump was more concise. "Shoot down that balloon!" — he wrote in his social network Truth Social. Several other Republican congressmen called for similar action.

How the postponement of the visit will affect relations between China and the United States

The postponement of Blinken's visit to China will also affect subsequent contacts that were planned between the United States and China, said Alexei Maslov, director of the Institute of Asian and African Countries at Moscow State University. “Firstly, according to Chinese etiquette, this is a very serious violation, it can be regarded as rudeness. Moreover, a very strange reason was chosen, in China the incident with the balloon is not considered significant, ”Maslov told RBC. He said Blinken's decision to postpone the trip could be seen as a sign of US weakness and that he would not have been able to prove China's weakness on Taiwan or other issues during the visit. Therefore, he used a convenient excuse to cancel the trip. In China, the decision of the US Secretary of State is viewed as a manifestation of cowardice, the expert is sure.

When the story with the ball appeared, the factors of Congress, criticism from Donald Trump and the general opinion of the American public played, it was difficult for the administration to continue with the planned activities, says Kashin. The expert doubts that the balloon could have been sent on purpose, the parties were unlikely to intentionally disrupt the visit, but because of the resonance, the Biden administration had to react. According to Kashin, the parties will try to restore dialogue when the situation calms down.

According to Alan Kafruni, a professor of international relations at Hamilton College, the postponement of Blinken's visit to China could be due to the White House's unwillingness to show weakness towards Beijing. “China's explanation of the probe being blown off course seems plausible to me, but the American media and Republican politicians reacted very strongly, voicing accusations of espionage and calling for the downing of the balloon. Therefore, even if the Biden administration accepted such an explanation, it may have postponed the visit in order to avoid accusations of softness, ”he told RBC.