The NPR Politics Podcast - Top US Diplomat Cancels China Trip Amid "Spy" Balloon Fallout

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled his trip to China after the U.S. spotted a Chinese surveillance balloon near a military base in Montana. The Air Force popped the balloon off the coast of South Carolina over the weekend. Blinken's meeting with President Xi Jinping would have been first high-level visit to the country by a U.S. official in more than five years.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, China correspondent Emily Feng, and congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh.This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Rosella and Graham. We're from Portland, Oregon, and we're currently standing in front of the United States Capitol building, and it's a beautiful day in Washington, D.C. This podcast was recorded at 1013 a.m. on Monday, February 6th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. OK, enjoy the show. Well, if you guys recorded that timestamp on Sunday, it was beautiful at the Capitol yesterday. Beautiful day. Hey, there is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And NPR's Emily Fang is with us from Taiwan. She covers China. Hey, Emily. Hey, Emily. Hey, Dan. So after a week of hovering over the United States and Canada, the suspected Chinese spy balloon floated out over the Atlantic just off the coast of South Carolina, and then the U.S. Air Force took it out. President Biden addressed it from under the

wing of Air Force One on Saturday. I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible. They decided without doing damage to anyone on the ground. They decided that the best time to do that was if it got over water outside within our 12-mile limit. They successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it. U.S. investigators are now working to uncover evidence of what they are saying with confidence was a surveillance balloon carrying equipment for gathering intelligence. Deirdre, I want to start with you and the domestic politics. This was an unusual event that captured a lot of people's attention. Definitely. Because they could see it in the sky

above their homes, depending on where they were in the U.S. But based on my inbox, there are a lot of Republicans who think that President Biden acted too slowly. So what is the criticism here? I mean, their criticism is that this spy balloon was detected on January 28th and was able to cross the entire United States. As you noted, it was finally shot down over the coastline of South Carolina. But Republicans are saying President Biden acted too slowly and that this spy balloon was able to continue collecting information as it floated across the continental United States, and that it was a threat. And that, you know, a lot of Republicans are saying this shows Biden is weak, that he wasn't willing to take on this national security threat from China, and that he should have acted immediately.

And I bet those are themes we are going to hear again and again. Right. What the White House is saying is that there was a risk to people on the ground, that this was not like a little red balloon. This was a big balloon with a heavy payload and that, you know, the debris field is evidence that it could have hit someone on the ground, even over more rural parts of America, which is where Republicans are like, hey, Montana, Idaho, there's a lot of space there. Emily, the Chinese government had insisted that this was not a spy balloon, but some sort of weather researching thing. What are they

saying now that it's been shot out of the sky? They've stuck with that line. They have continued to say it was a civilian airship, that it was up in the air because it was doing research mostly on meteorology and that it kind of just blew astray and ended up in U.S. airspace by accident. Other people, since the U.S. shot down this balloon, have discovered a similar balloon over Latin America. China has also said today that that's also a civilian airship doing weather research. The U.S. Defense Department has said they've actually encountered at least three other incidents under the Trump administration where they found similar

aerial surveillance vehicles that they believe the Chinese sent. But China has continued to say that they only have these as civilian vehicles. And that's why they've insisted that shooting this balloon down with two F-22 fighter jets has been what they've said is an obvious overreaction. So they're not happy about this. So China says it's an overreaction. Congressional Republicans say it's an underreaction. And here we are. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was supposed to be in China today to meet with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. And it would have been the first high-level visit to the country from a top U.S. official in more than five years. But Blinken called off that

trip on Friday because of the balloon drama. You know, this is just the latest in a series of strains on the U.S.-China relationship. Emily, how serious is this? Well, it's been incredible diplomatic whiplash, right? It's been hard to keep up with. At first thinking some kind of detente, maybe even a breakthrough in the U. The fact that Blinken was about to go to China and then this supposed surveillance balloon suddenly showed up. Kevin McCarthy, the current speaker of the House, is likely going to head to Taiwan, this island that China claims as its own, in the spring. And so the hope was that this visit that Blinken was taking would lower the temperature in the U.S.-China relationship. Now it's not clear that trip is even going to be rescheduled. And so you've got these potentially big hiccups that might put more tension to the U.S.-China relationship and no clear off-ramps for either country just yet. But I think also what this episode totally shows is that domestic

sentiment in the U.S. might be one of the big hindrances to making any detente in the U.S.-China relationship. As you mentioned, there was a lot of anti-China criticism that Biden didn't shoot this balloon down earlier, and that could also force his hand when it comes to dealing with China. Deirdre, you said something on the podcast last week that really stood out, and I want to get into that a little bit more. You said that concern about China is one of the few things inspiring bipartisan security and economic threats from China. As you know, it's bitterly divided here in Washington, and there is a very small margin in the House of Representatives. Speaker Kevin McCarthy only has a four-vote majority. But one of the first bills that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support was to create this select

committee. They've just appointed all of the members, Republicans and Democrats, on this committee. Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher will chair the committee, and the top Democrat will be Illinois Democrat Raj Krishnamoorthy. It's rare that you get a Republican talking about how excited in Washington he is to work with a Democrat, but Gallagher put out a statement saying he's thrilled to work with Krishnamoorthy. They've already worked together on a bipartisan bill to ban TikTok in the United States. They are very focused on policy in this committee. And a lot of the committees in the Republican-controlled House are really focused on investigations of the Biden administration, and they're very partisan. But this is one committee

where I expect to see a variety of policies discussed. And obviously, this whole incident with the spy balloon is putting a huge spotlight on the issue. And I think the members of this committee think that's a good thing, right? I think they want the American public to understand the real potential threats from China as they see it. In this case, it's a national security threat, but they also want to focus on human rights issues and economic issues. I assume that we can look forward to a hearing or several related to this balloon incident. For sure. All right, we're going to take a quick break and we will have more in a second. And we're back. And the meeting between Secretary of State Blinken and China's Xi, which is now not going to happen, was supposed to reduce tensions between the two superpowers.

Emily, I think you alluded to this, but is there any indication of whether this is going to be rescheduled or if this is going to be like a very serious blow to the ongoing communications between the two countries? Right now, the ball is really in China's court. I mean, the U.S. shot the balloon down. They're now waiting for China to have a reaction beyond what they've said as official statements. If China extends an olive branch, you know, they make some more substantial apology or they promise maybe not to send any surveillance balloons in the future, that might be grounds to then very, very quickly reschedule another trip. But it's just too soon yet to see what happens. But in general, I mean, it just shows how unpredictable U.S.-China relations continue to be and how even when there are plans to meet between top leaders, that those can be blown astray, so to speak, at the last minute by very, very unusual reasons.

I could see a lot of political pressure on the secretary of state to not go right until we have a lot of the information that Emily just mentioned. I think, you know, at a time where Republicans are criticizing the administration for acting slowly, I think they're going to want a lot more answers before a high level official goes and meets with the Chinese leader. Completely. That's what I meant by, you know, domestic politics may actually play a bigger role than diplomacy in the U.S.-China relationship because there's so much legislative and popular sentiment against China right now that that may actually shape what Biden decides to do in response to any Chinese reaction, no matter how positive they are. So this may be too big a question to answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is the U.S. in a cold war with China at this point? I say no, only because the level of engagement between the two countries economically, politically is still very, very large. I mean, incomparable to the divide that was between the US and the supply chains of the two countries. There is a trend towards that happening to a greater degree,

but our economies are still so intertwined that there's no way these two countries operate independently of each other. Deirdre, this week, the Biden administration is set to brief top congressional leaders on the Chinese spy balloon. That was set before it was shot down. The White House also says that President Biden will address competition with China in his State of the Union address. What do lawmakers want to hear from the president and his administration? Well, I think they're going to want to hear some more details in tomorrow night's State of the Union address. I think there's a lot of public demands from top Republican leaders as to why the administration detected the spy balloon before it started heading over Alaska and knew where it was and knew it had come over the United States. But then they didn't do anything about it until it was allowed to drift all the way across the entire country.

I think lawmakers want to know what did China learn from this balloon and the reports that there were other spy balloons that came over the United States at different parts. Maybe they didn't go over the entire country, but what have the Chinese been learning from these types of intelligence operations. And I think lawmakers want to know once the Navy is able to retrieve the remains of the spy balloon, you know, what kind of equipment did it have? And what kinds of operations were the Chinese monitoring? So I think there's just a lot of questions about the specific national security threats that this whole operation posed. Yeah. Emily Fang in Taiwan, thank you so much.

Thanks, Tamara. And we will be back in your feeds tomorrow night, late tomorrow night after the State of the Union address. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.