The United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinkenhas postponed this Friday his visit to Chinascheduled for next week, after the discovery of a Chinese spy balloon over US territory.
Blinken was going to become the first member of US President Joe Biden’s Cabinet to visit the Asian giant, but now the authorities have decided to cancel the trip for the moment while waiting for more information about the balloon in question, which was detected at a high altitude on areas of the state of Montana that are home to nuclear facilities.
In this sense, the Biden Administration considers that going to China now could send the wrong message, so has postponed the trip indefinitelyas government sources have explained to the newspaper ‘The Wall Street Journal’.
Beijing, for its part, has admitted that the balloon is its own, but has brandished scientific reasons to explain its deployment. In addition, he has admitted that it is “unfortunate” that an aerial object entered US airspace by “forces beyond its control.”
“The balloon is from China and is civilian in nature, used for scientific research, such as meteorological affairs“, said a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, who pointed out that” after being affected by westerly winds and due to the limitation of its control capacity, it seriously deviated from its scheduled route.
The balloon was detected earlier this week over the territory of Mountainwhere several intercontinental missile warehouses are located, although the authorities have ruled out that it poses a “physical or military” threat to the population.
Although this type of incident has occurred in the past, Republicans have harshly criticized what happened and have pointed out that it is a clear sign that China “has not made a change in its foreign policy” despite showing an apparent openness regarding To united states.
The Chinese government has not been slow to ask Washington to “don’t oversize” the matter. “We have no intention of violating the airspace or sovereignty of other countries,” said Mao Ning, spokesman for the Asian country’s Foreign Ministry.
Blinken was to become the first US secretary of state to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in nearly six years. With this trip, the Biden Administration sought to strengthen relations with the country and reduce tension.
Source: Lasexta
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