General secretary Xi Jinping signed off on the Chinese government’s first statement regarding the spy balloon that was subsequently shot down off the coast of South Carolina, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Chinese foreign-ministry statement followed the Pentagon’s disclosure on February 2 that a high-altitude balloon was traversing the U.S. The Chinese statement, which came the following day, struck a conciliatory tone, claiming that the balloon was a civilian meteorological device that had been blown off course.
“China regrets that the airship strayed into the United States by mistake due to force majeure,” the statement continued.
Yesterday’s WSJ report was an account of events throughout the week in which the first balloon was detected — and later shot down — based on conversations with Chinese and U.S. officials.
In comments to the WSJ, Chinese officials claimed to have been surprised by the emergence of the balloon, which they said they only learned about on February 1, when Secretary of State Antony Blinken and deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman met with Xu Xueyuan, who is currently the top Chinese diplomat in the U.S.
Xu was surprised when the State Department told the Chinese side during the meeting that the U.S. was preparing to tell the public about the balloon, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the discussion. That meeting reportedly set in motion a 36-hour frenzy in Beijing, which culminated in Xi’s approval of the statement.
At the time the initial Chinese statement was issued (February 3) Blinken had not yet postponed his trip to China, which he would have departed for later that week. After Blinken’s postponement of the trip and the downing of the balloon on February 4, however, the Chinese government took a harsher line, accusing the U.S. of violating “international practice” and saying that it could “take further actions” in response.
U.S. officials have been adamant that the balloon, whose path took it over the Malmstrom Air Force Base and likely several other sensitive military sites, was equipped for surveillance purposes. The State Department told reporters last week that the balloon was clearly equipped for “signals intelligence collection operations.”
And while the WSJ’s sources claimed that Chinese diplomats were surprised by the balloon incident, there are indications that the People’s Liberation Army has for years operated a broader, worldwide surveillance-balloon campaign.