Biden says China spy balloon won’t hurt Xi relations — draws Chinese rebuke
Tensions? What tensions?
President Biden said he doesn’t think relations with China will be negatively affected by his having to shoot down a Chinese balloon that spied on the US mainland last week — in an interview that immediately drew a sharp rebuke from China.
Asked during an interview Wednesday with “PBS NewsHour” if relations have taken a hit from the incident, Biden responded, “No.”
The president went on to say that he has previously talked to Chinese President Xi Jinping, but not since the balloon made headlines last week, and he insisted that lines of communication between Beijing and Washington remain open.
“I haven’t talked to him during this,” he told correspondent Judy Woodruff. “But, look, I mean, the idea of shooting down a balloon that’s gathering information over America and that makes relations worse?”
He said in his prior conversations with Xi that the US will “compete fully” with China, “but we’re not looking for conflict.”
“And that’s been the case so far,” Biden said.
But Biden also said Xi “has enormous problems. Enormous. He has also great potential. But so far, he has an economy that’s not functioning very well” as well as questions about Beijing’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
And that drew a rebuke Thursday from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, who said at a briefing in Beijing: “The US remarks are highly irresponsible and violate basic diplomatic protocols. We are firmly opposed to that and condemn that.”
Biden said he also pointed out to his Chinese counterpart that the same consequences Russia faces for attacking neighboring Ukraine could befall China if it follows President Vladimir Putin’s lead.
“Six hundred American corporations have pulled out of Russia — from McDonald’s to Exxon. And I said, ‘You’ve told me all along that the reason why you need a relationship with the United States in Europe is so they invest in China.’ So who’s going to invest in China if you engage in the same kind of deal? You notice there’s not been much going on there,” Biden said on PBS.
Meanwhile, a number of developments on the Chinese spy balloon occurred Thursday.
Reports revealed that the balloon was outfitted with antennas and sensors for intelligence-gathering, as well as solar panels designed to power the devices — contradicting China’s claims that it was a private meteorological craft that blew off course.
During its journey across the US mainland, the balloon, which flew at about 60,000 feet, passed over a number of sensitive US military sires, including missile defense systems and storage sites for land-based nuclear weapons.
The State Department said Thursday that other balloons, controlled by the People’s Liberation Army of China, have flown over 40 different countries.
The House on Thursday also voted unanimously 419-0 to condemn China for sending the balloon over the US, calling it a “brazen violation of United States sovereignty.”
Republicans have criticized Biden for not shooting down the balloon when it was first detected on Jan. 28 near Alaska, although the public didn’t learn of its presence until it was spotted hovering over Montana days later.
“Communist China’s surveillance balloon violates international law and threatens our homeland,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) of Staten Island told The Post.
“It’s an outrage that the Biden Administration spotted this balloon days ago as it was flying over the Aleutian Islands and did nothing about … this unacceptable act of aggression by the CCP,” she said.
Biden said he ordered the military to down it last Wednesday but was advised by military officials to allow the balloon to get over water first for safety reasons and to make it easier to recover the high-altitude craft and its payload.
A US Air Force F-22 fighter jet shot it down Saturday a few miles off the South Carolina coast near Myrtle Beach.
With Post wires
