Antony Blinken postpones China trip after Beijing confirms balloon spotted over Montana is its property
- The US secretary of state says he will reschedule his visit, as some US lawmakers call for the balloon to be shot down
- ‘The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure,’ a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson says
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will postpone his trip to China next week, after Beijing acknowledged that a suspected surveillance balloon detected over the US is from China and expressed regret over the incident – a setback to recent efforts to halt a deterioration in bilateral relations.
Blinken confirmed an earlier State Department announcement that he would postpone the trip, saying on Friday afternoon that he had notified China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi. Wang, who stepped down as foreign minister in December, now heads the office of the Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission.
Blinken said he told Wang in a telephone conversation “that the presence of this surveillance balloon in US airspace is a clear violation of US sovereignty and international law … and that the PRC decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have”.
Blinken said that he planned to visit Beijing when conditions allowed and that the US would continue to maintain lines of communication with China, including to address the balloon situation.
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Pentagon says it is tracking ‘Chinese spy balloon’ in US ahead of Blinken’s first trip to Beijing
“The first step is getting the surveillance asset out of our space, and that’s what we’re focused on,” Blinken said.
Blinken said that “it was very important for Wang Yi, the senior foreign policy official in Beijing, to hear this directly from me”.
