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Tensions between the U.S. and China are on the rise again after the discovery of what the Biden administration is describing as a sophisticated Chinese espionage tool flying over the United States.
The discovery of a massive Chinese surveillance balloon over Montana, which hosts some nuclear silos, sparked a diplomatic crisis on Friday, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken quickly postponing a high-stakes trip to Beijing hours before he was set to leave.
Senior U.S. officials across the Departments of State and Defense lodged complaints with their Chinese counterparts, underscoring the anger across the Biden administration.
Republicans in Congress slammed both China and the administration over the fact that the balloon had made it into U.S. skies, calling it a serious security breach.
And from China, there was a sense of chagrin, with the nation issuing a statement accepting responsibility for a private balloon flying into U.S. airspace. Beijing said it regretted this had happened.
The discovery is a severe incident, said Jacob Stokes, a senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security, and one that is testing how the U.S. and Chinese can cool tensions.
“I think this incident tells us what we already knew about the state of the U.S.-China relationship. The two powers are locked in an intense geopolitical rivalry, and that’s both the reason we need effective diplomatic engagement, and simultaneously, the major obstacle to those channels working effectively to avoid competition from spiraling out of control,” he said.
Some experts expressed caution at overstating the threat from the Chinese balloon.
“I don’t know exactly what the balloon is collecting but [if it] were important then it would probably have been shot down long ago,” Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project and associate senior fellow to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told The Hill.
“That said, it’s the latest chapter in a global trend of an increasing number of unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles used by countries for intelligence collection.”
Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Friday that the Pentagon expects the balloon will be over the U.S. for a few days. It is reviewing options over whether to destroy it, given concerns over falling debris.
It’s not the first time the U.
