US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Chinese counterpart on Saturday evening in Munich. On the occasion of a face-to-face which was held under the sign of the confrontation, according to American officials, Mr. Blinken warned his vis-à-vis: the flight of a surveillance balloon Chinese over the United States “must never happen again”.
Trump also warned Beijing against providing “material support” for Russia’s war in Ukraine, later implying that China was now “strongly” considering the possibility.
The American description of the meeting, which made it possible to renew diplomatic contacts between Washington and Beijing after their rupture due to the episode of the balloons, says nothing about the reaction of the Chinese official, Wang Yi. But a brief summary by official Chinese state media describes an equally heated exchange.
According to that account, Mr Wang said it was up to the United States to “repair the damage caused by its excessive use of force” when it shot down the big balloon off South Carolina.
Relationships at rock bottom
Both descriptions suggest that Washington and Beijing are entrenching themselves, two weeks after the episode. US officials had clearly hoped to find a solution that would allow Mr. Blinken to reschedule his visit to China, the first in years for a US secretary of state, which he had abruptly canceled as the balloon drifted from Montana to the East Coast.
PHOTO PETR DAVID JOSEK, ASSOCIATED PRESS
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a panel at the Munich Security Conference
It should be noted that neither country has spoken of seeking a new date for Mr. Blinken’s trip.
Mr. Blinken also told NBC that he had spoken “very clearly and very directly” to Mr. Wang about the ball incident and that there had been “no apology” from his Chinese counterpart during the meeting.
This incident was yet another reminder that China-US relations have reached their lowest point since Richard Nixon opened a channel of communication with Chinese leaders half a century ago.
Although US President Joe Biden has often said he aspires to a relationship in which the two countries compete vigorously without being in conflict, many of those present at the Munich Security Conference – an annual gathering of diplomats, intelligence officials and lawmakers – lamented that the balloon episode showed the two countries’ inability to defuse the situation, even though no lives were lost.
An “absurd and hysterical” reaction, accuses China
Hours before his meeting with Mr. Blinken, Mr. Wang appeared before the Munich Conference and, to the amazement of many Western officials, reiterated China’s claim that the balloon was a research device ” civilian” blown off course by high winds, calling the US decision to shoot it down “absurd and hysterical”. He also accused the United States of “abuse of the use of force”.
In a description of Mr. Blinken’s message to Mr. Wang, the US State Department, which uses the abbreviation of the name of the People’s Republic of China, said that the United States “will not tolerate any violation of [leur] sovereignty and that the PRC’s high-altitude surveillance program, which has encroached on the airspace of more than 40 countries on 5 continents, has been exposed to the world”.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE U.S. NAVY, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Members of the United States Navy recover wreckage from the Chinese balloon shot down off South Carolina earlier this month.
The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have since recovered much of the balloon’s equipment — contained in a payload the size of a small regional airliner — and U.S. officials said they had the intend to make public the details of the sensors they found.
US officials have previously said the craft’s surveillance equipment was visible, contradicting China’s claims that it was a weather balloon.
Mr Blinken warned China again not to support Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, including by providing satellite images to Russia’s private Wagner militia and electronic devices that could help Russia build equipment military.
In an interview on the show Meet the Press from NBC, which was taped Saturday night for broadcast this Sunday, Blinken said the United States would soon provide new information showing that Beijing was “strongly considering providing lethal assistance to Russia.”
“The cold war mentality is back”
Although the State Department sought to portray Mr. Blinken’s tone as harsh, its official statement on the meeting said he had stressed to Mr. Wang “the importance of maintaining diplomatic dialogue and lines of defence.” communication open at all times”, and that the United States “will not [veulent] no conflict with the PRC and does not seek[ent] not a new cold war”.
The phrase was particularly noteworthy given that Mr. Wang had said in an earlier speech at the Munich Conference on Saturday that “the Cold War mentality is back” in world affairs.
Saturday night’s meeting came two weeks after Mr Blinken abruptly canceled a long-planned trip to Beijing, which was meant to ease relations between the United States and China, which have soured in recent years. years, with some analysts worrying about the growing potential for future military conflict.
Override the incident
The cancellation of the trip and the ensuing war of words set back relations between the two countries. After Mr Biden ordered the balloon downed, China rejected Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s request to speak with his Chinese counterpart – a development that US officials have called troubling.
China initially took a contrite tone about the balloon, saying it was a weather craft that had veered off course. But in the days that followed, including when the US military identified and shot down three more objects it now admits were probably harmless craft, Beijing’s tone hardened.
Mr Wang called the US reaction an effort to “divert attention from its domestic issues” and said the downing of the balloon was “100% an abuse of the use of force”, adding that the United States had violated an international convention governing airspace.
Despite the scathing rhetoric, says Danny Russel, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, an independent research organization, “the fact that the meeting took place and both sides can claim to have made their case on the ball -spy can help both sides put the incident behind them and move on to rescheduling Blinken’s trip to Beijing – where the real work needs to be done.”
This text was originally published in the New York Times