China's intelligence officials, on the cusp of a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Secretary General Xi Jinping, provided U.S. officials with a mystery wrapped in a balloon.
“The question is the timing: Why would they do this right before the secretary of state's meeting with Xi Jinping?” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul said to the Washington Examiner. “It was a little bit of a shot across the bow.”
“A visit between Blinken and his counterparts in Beijing should go forward but not right now; this is not the right time — just the optics of it,” Heritage Foundation research fellow Michael Cunningham said. “It sounds childish, but a lot of diplomacy is like this. It is symbolic.” Blinken's team emphasized the need for the conversation even while explaining its cancellation.
"We believe in the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and the PRC in order to responsibly manage the relationship," Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Tuesday. “Lines between our militaries are particularly important in moments like this.” The balloon’s appearance in American skies is just one incident in a wider surveillance campaign that has operated with impunity in the United States and other countries around the world, according to U.S. and allied officials. Japanese citizens were alarmed in 2020 by the sight of a white “balloon-like object above a cross,” as it was described at the time.
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