“Closely observing the balloon in flight has allowed us to better understand this Chinese program and further confirmed its mission was surveillance,” said the official, who discussed intelligence matters on the condition of anonymity.
The official said Chinese surveillance balloons had briefly flown over the continental United States once before during the Biden administration and at least three times while Donald Trump was president, which was discovered only after he left office.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning confirmed that a balloon spotted over Latin America also belonged to China, saying it was on a flight test for civilian purposes, had limited steering capability and had unintentionally entered the airspace of countries in the region.
“China is a responsible country and we always act in accordance with international law,” she said at a regular news briefing on Monday.
Mao did not say which Chinese company or entity owned the balloon that was downed in the U.S., but she said the government would “firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant Chinese companies.”
For China, the U.S. reaction to the balloon suggests that not much would have come from Blinken’s visit anyway, Benjamin Ho, assistant professor in the China program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told NBC News.
“If the Americans played down this issue, then the Chinese could take it as a sign that the Americans were really sincere about meeting them and not wanting this escalation of poor relations to continue,” he said. “But in this case that didn’t happen, so in other words we are back to square one.”
Jude Blanchette, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that while the balloon incident was a major misstep by Beijing, postponing Blinken’s trip was “a bit of a knee-jerk reaction” that could demonstrate the White House’s concern with domestic politics.
It “shows the deep sensitivities to the optics of these early maneuvers by the administration to reset relations,” he said.
Zhu Feng, director of the Institute of International Studies at Nanjing University, said China would continue to be a contentious issue as the 2024 U.S. election approaches.
“U.S. politicians are trying to make the Chinese threat bigger, using the Chinese factor to intensify Americans’ sense of crisis and promote domestic cohesion,” he said.
Nonetheless, he said he expected communication between the two countries to resume, noting that Biden and Xi have spoken by phone multiple times in the last two years despite the bilateral tensions.
“China doesn’t want a new cold war between the two sides, much less a complete decoupling,” he said. “What China wants more is to develop its own economy and the lives of its people.”
Jennifer Jett is the Asia digital editor for NBC News, based in Hong Kong.
Peter Alexander and Megan Lebowitz contributed.
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