Chinese Spy Balloon Does Not Impact U.S.-China Relations

Topline

The Chinese spy balloon incident does not impact U.S.-China relations, Vice President Kamala Harris told Politico, days before White House officials could meet with Chinese diplomats for the first time since the U.S. shot down the balloon earlier this month.

Key Facts

“I don’t think so, no,” Harris told Politico on Tuesday when asked if the incident should affect the U.S.’s relationship with China.

Harris said that the White House will continue its approach to avoid “conflict or confrontation” with Beijing and instead focus on “competition.”

The comments come less than two weeks after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon it said had traveled from Hainan Island to Alaska, then Montana, before making its way to the East Coast, where it was taken down by U.S. fighter jets over the Atlantic Ocean on February 4.

China, however, has taken a firmer stance against the issue and threatened “countermeasures against relevant U.S. entities,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a briefing Wednesday, reiterating the Chinese government’s stance that it is “firmly opposed” to the take down.

What To Watch For

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is weighing a meeting with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign diplomat, at the Munich Security Conference this weekend, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources. Blinken cancelled a planned visit to Beijing on February 3 after the U.S. announced it had been tracking the spy balloon since February 28. Harris is also scheduled to attend the event.

Key Background

The Pentagon had been tracking the spy balloon nearly a week before it publicly disclosed on February 2 that the vessel was hovering over Billings, Montana, not far from one of the U.S.’s three nuclear silo fields, the Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing unnamed officials. Beijing has maintained that the vessel was a civilian-operated weather balloon that was blown off course and previously called the U.S. military’s take down of the balloon on February 4 an “indiscriminate use of force.” Following that incident, three more aerial objects were shot down over Alaska on Friday, Canada on Saturday and Lake Huron on Sunday, but the White House said Tuesday there is no evidence that the objects were deployed by the Chinese government and instead said a “leading explanation” is that they were tied to commercial activity.

Tangent

The Biden Administration has faced allegations from Congress members of a lack of transparency about the Chinese spy balloon program, after the White House disclosed that it had identified at least five balloons during former President Donald Trump’s and Biden’s tenures—information Trump and his former national security advisers have also said they were unaware of. The House passed a resolution last week condemning the Chinese government for deploying the spy balloon that also called on the Biden Administration to continue briefing Congress members as it gathers intelligence on the Chinese government’s balloon surveillance program.

Further Reading

U.S. Tracked Spy Balloon From Time It Left China—Days Earlier Than Previously Known, Report Says (Forbes)

China Threatens Retaliation Against U.S. For Downing Surveillance Balloon (Forbes)

Everything We Know About The Chinese Balloon—And 3 Other Objects— Shot Down By The U.S. (Updated) (Forbes)