Secretary of state Antony J. Blinken held what American officials described as a confrontational meeting with his Chinese counterpart on Saturday night in Munich, warning him that the flight of a Chinese surveillance balloon across the US “must never happen again”.
He also cautioned Beijing against providing “material support” to Russia’s war in Ukraine, a prospect he later suggested China was now “strongly” considering.
The US description of the meeting, which resumed diplomatic contact between Washington and Beijing after it broke down over the balloon episode, said nothing about how the Chinese official, Wang Yi, responded. But a brief summary on official Chinese state media described an equally sharp exchange.
Wang, according to that account, said it was up to the US to “solve the damage caused by the indiscriminate use of force” when it shot down the large balloon off South Carolina.
The two descriptions suggested that both Washington and Beijing were digging in, two weeks after the episode. American officials had clearly hoped to find a path towards a resolution that would allow Blinken to reschedule a visit to China, the first in years by a US secretary of state, that he had abruptly cancelled as the balloon drifted from Montana to the East Coast.
Notably, neither country said anything about seeking a new date for Blinken’s trip. Blinken also told NBC that he had spoken “very clearly and very directly” to Wang about the balloon incident, and that there had been “no apology” from Wang during the meeting. It was another reminder that Chinese-US relations have fallen to perhaps their lowest point since Richard Nixon opened a channel of communication to China’s leadership a half-century ago.
While President Biden often talks of aspiring to a relationship in which the two nations are in vigorous competition but not conflict, many at the Munich Security Conference — an annual meeting of diplomatic, intelligence officials and lawmakers— expressed concerns that the handling of the balloon episode merely highlighted how the two countries had failed to de-escalate, even when no lives were lost.
A state department description of Blinken’s message to Wang, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China, said the US “will not stand for any violation of our sovereignty, and that the PRC’s high-altitude surveillance programmes — which has intruded into the air space of over 40 countries across 5continents, has been exposed to the world”.
Blinken also renewed warnings that China should not assist Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. In his interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, which was taped on Saturday night for broadcast on Sunday, Blinken said the US would soon be offering new information to demonstrate Beijing was “strongly considering providing lethal assistance to Russia”.
New York Times News Service
