Spy balloon threatens to deflate momentum toward improving China-U.S. ties

Washington’s decision to postpone the highest-level visit by a U.S. official to Beijing in five years jeopardizes momentum toward stabilizing ties amid concerns over the trajectory of the two powers’ relationship.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken put the hotly anticipated visit on ice after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was tracked flying over the U.S. in what Washington called a "clear violation" of U.S. sovereignty. The White House said Blinken’s visit, which had been expected to begin over the weekend, would not be appropriate “at this time.”

China’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday offered up a rare statement of regret that “a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes” had strayed into U.S. airspace. However, it lambasted politicians and media in the U.S. for hyping the issue “to attack and smear China.”

Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Friday that the balloon was moving eastward and was over the central United States at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and did not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground. He said it would likely remain over the country for at least a few more days.

A U.S. official said Thursday that the balloon — said to be as wide as 30 meters — was also assessed to have "limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective.” President Joe Biden had been briefed on the balloon’s flight Tuesday, U.S. officials said, with the president ultimately ruling out shooting it down because of the safety risk from debris.

Speaking to reporters Friday in Washington, Blinken said he had told Wang Yi, director of China's Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, that the incident just ahead of his visit was an "irresponsible act" by China, but Washington remained committed to engagement and he would visit “when conditions allow.”

“In our judgment, it created conditions that undermine the very purpose of the trip, including ongoing efforts ... to build a floor under the relationship as well as to address a very broad range of issues that are important to Americans, to Chinese, to the entire world,” Blinken said.

But Blinken refused to put a date on when the postponed visit would be rescheduled, saying that the U.S. must first focus on “getting the surveillance asset out of our airspace.”

Daniel Russel, who served as the top U.S. diplomat for Asia under President Barack Obama, said the Biden administration’s “clear message of displeasure to the Chinese” would set the stage for a reboot of the meeting in the near future.

“And inasmuch as the U.S. has much bigger fish to fry with the Chinese than a surveillance balloon, the Biden team should be inclined to pick up where they left off after a decent interval,” he said, adding that an early March date would be possible, after the conclusion of a session of the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp congress.

While the surveillance balloon almost certainly contributed to the decision to postpone the trip, there were very likely other factors that forced its delay, despite cautious optimism that the visit could help stabilize ties, said Andrew Scobell, with the United States Institute of Peace’s China program.

Although it remains unclear what the other factors were, Bloomberg News reported that U.S. officials believed that the trip wasn’t worth the potential domestic political costs of going, given that Blinken’s talks in China were not expected to yield much in the first place.

Rep. Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the balloon should never have been allowed into U.S. airspace and could have been shot down over water.

"I am calling on the Biden administration to quickly take steps to remove the Chinese spy balloon from U.S. airspace," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted that “China’s brazen disregard for U.S. sovereignty is a destabilizing action that must be addressed.”

Zhiqun Zhu, a professor at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, said that Blinklen appeared unenthusiastic about the trip in the first place, and that amid the growing contest between Democrats and Republicans to appear more hawkish toward China, a visit would be a risky gamble.

“If Blinken did go, he would come back empty-handed,” Zhu said. “And if he reached some understanding or compromise with the Chinese side on issues such as Taiwan, he would be lambasted and condemned by many back home, especially some Republican members of Congress.

“So the balloon incident perhaps helped him and his Chinese host to avoid an embarrassing visit,” he added.

Sino-U.S. ties have plummeted in recent years, especially in the wake of then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to democratic Taiwan last August. That trip prompted China to respond with days of massive military drills around the self-ruled island — which China views as a renegade province — including exercises that sent missiles over Taiwan and into waters near Japan’s far-flung southwestern islands.

Blinken’s planned visit was widely seen as aimed at finding ways to keep Sino-U.S. tensions in check, promote dialogue and set up guardrails to prevent the rapidly deteriorating relationship — marked by intensifying geopolitical rivalry and competition — from veering into crisis or even conflict. It was also meant to help maintain the momentum built at a November meeting in Bali, Indonesia, between Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, where the two sides agreed to increase dialogue and keep lines of communication open.

The balloon row appears to have deflated those hopes, at least for now.

“The incident has soured the atmosphere and hardened positions and there’s no guarantee the two sides can successfully resurrect the Bali momentum,” said Russel, who is currently vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“On the other hand, both sides are looking for ways to stabilize the relationship and reduce risk. So ideally, this incident can serve as a ‘teachable moment,’ underscoring the need for viable communications channels and rules of engagement between the two powers,” he added.

But Michael D. Swaine, director of the East Asia program at the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said that the row “tells the Chinese that Biden is weak, subject to domestic pressures, and that U.S.-China relations continue to face major hurdles, especially in the U.S. and largely as a result of congressional pressure.”

The relationship, he said, “will continue to limp along,” as worst-case assumptions about the motives of the other side deepen.

“The greatest danger in all this is that this trend will increase the chance of a crisis if not conflict over Taiwan,” Swaine said. “On that issue, neither side is willing to exercise the restraint and express the assurances necessary to stabilize the situation. They are both simply doubling down on deterrence and sending signals of resolve."