A balloon that halts diplomacy, but hides Hunter's China aims from American eyes

The visit of Blinken to Beijing was aimed at stabilising relations between the two countries.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s high-profile visit to Beijing was postponed by the Biden Administration on Friday after an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted hovering over an American nuclear site.

Blinken’s visit scheduled for early next week was touted to reset Sino-US relations after being strained since 2016 following a series of trade measures against China by Washington.

But the postponement comes at a time when the Republican members in the US Congress raised serious questions about President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden’s business interest in China and demanded the President come clean on the issue.

It is not clear how disappointed China would be with the postponement as Beijing, too, was upset with the allegations about the spy balloon on the eve of the important visit.

Though the Pentagon decided against shooting down the balloon, US officials thought a visit to Beijing by the Secretary of State would send out a wrong signal in the country.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was “regretful” that a civilian airship entered US airspace because of forces beyond its control. It said the balloon was conducting climate research.

The balloon was spotted earlier this week over Montana, home to intercontinental-ballistic-missile silos, according to US Defence Department officials.

But they said it posed no intelligence threat as such incursions have taken place before.

However, the Pentagon’s announcement about the balloon had prompted an outcry from Republican lawmakers. They felt the Chinese diplomatic overtures did not represent a substantive change in policy towards the US.

The Chinese foreign ministry cautioned the US against hyping the issue while making it clear that China had no intention to violate other countries' sovereignty and airspaces.

It said relevant parties should handle the issue “in a cool-headed way”.

Blinken’s visit scheduled for Monday and Tuesday was part of the Biden Administration’s attempt to put “guardrails” in its relations with China to ensure that the rivalry between the two sides did not get worse.

For China, which successfully managed to come out of its prolonged period of Covid lockdown, it was meant to signal its readiness to engage with the outside world.

The US refused to give further details about the balloon, though it maintained that it was travelling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and did not pose a military or physical threat to people on the ground.

Chinese analysts refuted the sensational accusation about the surveillance balloon as over-the-top and fantastical.

They felt this was the latest example of the US hyping the China threat, introducing various topics to attempt to destabilise China. These kinds of stunts only serve to further strain bilateral relations, the Chinese experts added.

The balloon controversy also comes at a time when Republicans in the US Congress are ramping up their efforts to investigate alleged influence-peddling by President Biden’s family in shady transactions involving Chinese companies.

The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing next week on allegations surrounding Hunter Biden, Chairman James Comer said.

He said there was evidence that the Biden family has taken millions of dollars from our “adversaries, mainly in China”, and it has to be determined what the money was for.

The probe reflects the committee's shift in priorities since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives focusing more on the president and his family as Biden plans to seek re-election in 2024.

Republicans allege that Hunter Biden leveraged his father's political clout to profit in large amounts of money from businesses in China and Ukraine and point to his deal-making between American and Chinese companies.

Some Republicans have also voiced suspicions that classified documents found in recent months at Biden's Delaware residence and a former private office, dating from his time as vice president, may have been used for personal gain.

The visit of Blinken to Beijing was aimed at stabilising relations between the two countries.

Observers felt that both the US and China have a shared incentive to limit “downside risks and demonstrate competence in managing the relationship."

But in recent days there have been doubts from Chinese experts on how serious Washington was in resetting the relations with Beijing.

They felt the US was not sincere as it still wanted to encourage “bloc-to-bloc confrontation” in the Asia-Pacific.

Chinese experts said the US and NATO were trying to create a hostile atmosphere against China among its allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific region, while seeking more engagement with China on issues of concern to the US like finance and economy, climate change and the Ukraine conflict.

According to experts in Beijing that since the US was not sincere, China too should be cautious when it dealt with America.

The reference of the Chinese expert was to the recent visit of US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to the Philippines for talks about deploying US forces and weapons in more military camps to ramp up deterrence against China's actions around the island of Taiwan and the South China Sea.

But Kurt Campbell, the White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, said last month that in the short, and perhaps the medium term, China will seek to stabilise its relations with the US.

US officials observed found China using a much milder tone in their messaging towards Washington in 2023. This could lay the groundwork for a possible visit by the Chinese President Xi Jinping to the US later in the year for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meeting.

Much will, however, depend on how developments in the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere, particularly in Ukraine, pan out in the coming months and how the US and China react to them.