“The PRC didn’t do that,” General Ryder said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “They didn’t answer until they were called out. We’ll just leave it at that.
The State Department’s new campaign to reveal details of China’s spy balloon program to other governments is aimed at making allies and partners aware of the extent to which, US officials say China’s air surveillance efforts so that they can repel Beijing’s efforts. Wendy Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, briefed US diplomats abroad about the balloon program during a video conference on Monday and is preparing to speak publicly before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, officials said.
U.S. diplomats abroad have held meetings in their home countries to inform governments about the surveillance program.
American briefings with foreign officials are designed to show that the balloons are equipped for intelligence gathering and that the Chinese military has been carrying out this collection for years, targeted, among other locations, the territories of Japan, Taiwan, India and the Philippines. US diplomats argue that China has violated the sovereignty of many countries’ airspace, even as Chinese officials continue to assert that two balloons were seen last week in the United States and Latin America is a civilian machine.
“China has taken a modest approach to public information management,” said Jude Blanchette, a China scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The moment they made their statement of regret, they should have stopped there. Their lie that this is a civilian balloon makes things worse.”
China’s Foreign Ministry issued the weather balloon statement in a statement last Friday, a day after the Pentagon reported a Chinese spy balloon was hovering over Montana, in an apparent attempt to convince Mr. Blinken not to cancel a weekend trip he had planned to take. to Beijing. Planning for the trip began after President Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali, Indonesia, last November, and Blinken is expected to hold talks with Xi.
But shortly after China made its statement, Mr. Blinken phoned Wang Yi, the top foreign policy official of the Chinese Communist Party, to tell him that China had taken “an act of irresponsible behavior” and the trip was cancelled.
