The United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken has announced the postponement of his travel plan to China over detected surveillance balloon in US airspace.
Blinken made this announcement on Friday at the Press Briefing while hosting the Republic of Korea Foreign Minister, Park Jin in Washington.
The Secretary of State supposed to make the China Beijing trip through this weekend to follow up on the discussions of agreement President Biden and President Xi made during their meetings in Bali in November.
According to him, “I spoke this morning with Director of the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Office Wang Yi to convey that in light of China’s unacceptable action, I’m postponing my planned travel this weekend to China.
“As you know, President Biden and President Xi agreed during their meetings in Bali in November that I would travel to Beijing to follow up on their discussions.
“We’ve been working across the U.S. Government to prepare for a substantive set of discussions on issues that matter to the American people and to people around the world. And we’ve been engaging for some time with our counterparts in Beijing to prepare for these meetings”, he said.
On Thursday, the Department of Defense announced that they had detected and were tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that remains over the continental United States.
Blinken stated that US will continue to track and monitor the balloon closely.
“We’re confident this is a Chinese surveillance balloon. Once we detected the balloon, the U.S. Government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.
He stated that the United States has communicated with the PRC Govt directly through multiple channels about this issue. “Members of my team consulted with our partners in other agencies and in Congress.
“We also engaged our close allies and partners to inform them of the presence of the surveillance balloon in our airspace. We concluded that conditions were not conducive for a constructive visit at this time”.
Blinken made it clear in his call on Friday with Director Wang Yi, that the presence of this surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace is a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty.
“And international law, that it’s an irresponsible act, and that the PRC’s decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have.
“I told Director Wang that the United States remains committed to diplomatic engagement with China and that I plan to visit Beijing when conditions allow”, he said.
While in the meantime, he said the United States’ll continue to maintain open lines of communication with China, including to address this ongoing incident.
“Indeed, that’s why we need direct and regular communications in the first place, and that’s why it’s critical that such lines remain open at all times to help avoid miscalculation and conflict”, Secretary Blinken said.