Biden intends to speak with Xi to defuse tensions over balloon

President Joe Biden expects to soon speak with Xi Jinping about the Chinese balloon shot down by the US earlier this month, signaling a desire to end a dispute that has highlighted the fragility of relations between the world's biggest economies. 

Biden disclosed plans for the call as part of his most extensive remarks yet about the balloon saga, which led the US to destroy three other still-unidentified objects. He pledged to "responsibly manage" competition with China "so that it doesn't veer into conflict" — echoing a sentiment expressed when both leaders pledged to improve ties during a November meeting.

"I expect to be speaking with President Xi, and I hope we have a — we are going to get to the bottom of this," Biden said in remarks at the White House. "But I make no apologies for taking down that balloon."

Biden, who plans to visit Europe ahead of the one-year mark of the Russian invasion, didn't specify when he intended to speak with Xi. Since taking office two years ago, Biden has repeatedly leveraged his personal relationship with Xi — forged when both leaders served as vice president — to keep disputes from escalating.

Biden and Xi also spoke after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and days before then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August. Their first face-to-face meeting in November on the Indonesian resort island of Bali appeared to represent a breakthrough, coming as part of a wider push by Xi to ease diplomatic disputes and focus on rebuilding his Covid-battered economy.  

"Without clear directions from the top, it is difficult for the lower levels to properly manage the incident," said Vivian Zhan, an associate professor of Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "Biden's gesture suggests that the tension has escalated to the degree that it hurts the US interest as much as it does China, and needs to be contained."

In another sign that both sides are eager to turn the page, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is said to be weighing a meeting with China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference beginning Friday. The balloon's transit over the US and Canada prompted Blinken to cancel a trip to Beijing that had been planned in the wake of the earlier Biden-Xi meeting.  

While China initially expressed regret over what it said was the balloon's accidental passage over US territory, it has denied that the craft was intended for spying and denounced the decision to shoot it down as an "overreaction." 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Friday at a regular press briefing in Beijing that he had no information to offer on plans for any discussions between the two leaders.

Sanctions, visits

On Thursday, Beijing imposed fines and sanctions against two US defense companies, Lockheed Martin Corp. and a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies Corp., due to their participation in arms sales to Taiwan, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said. A largely symbolic gesture against companies with little exposure to China, it nonetheless showed Beijing's growing impatience with the US. 

Meanwhile, Michael Chase, the US's deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, will go to Taiwan in the coming days, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

Biden has faced bipartisan pressure in Congress to provide more information about the balloon, which was downed by a US fighter jet off the South Carolina coast on Feb. 4. The US shot three other unidentified objects out of the skies over Alaska, Canada and Michigan in the following days.

The president said those objects weren't related to the balloon incident and were likely tied to commercial or research ventures. He added that the administration hasn't determined definitively what they are because the debris hasn't yet been recovered. He said he acted "out of an abundance of caution" in downing the other mystery objects.

Biden said downing the balloon had sent "a clear message" that violations of US sovereignty were "unacceptable." The US is now working to recover the payload of the Chinese craft as well as the other objects it downed. Significant amounts of equipment have been recovered from the Chinese airship in waters off South Carolina. 

Still, the president said there was no evidence of any sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky. Rather, the US military and civil aviation authorities have spotted more objects after tuning radar systems to be more sensitive following the Chinese balloon's cross-country trip, he said. 

Biden ordered the creation of new parameters to establish a better inventory of unmanned airborne objects and implement measures to better detect man-made objects in US airspace. Blinken will also work with other nations to establish global norms on launching those devices and securing high-altitude spaces.

Defusing tensions

The White House has faced calls from Republicans and Democrats in Congress to provide more information to lawmakers and the public. The administration has provided closed-door briefings to members on Capitol Hill, but lawmakers have said the information should be public and that officials should provide more of it. 

Charlie Moore, a retired lieutenant general who was a former vice director of operations at Norad, the North American Air Defense Command, and who is now at Vanderbilt University, said the US should make clear that there will be consequences if more balloons enter US territory. 

"The Chinese must understand there is a diplomatic and economic price to pay for the overt violation of international law," he said. "We should not conduct the diplomatic meeting with Secretary Blinken until this is resolved."