Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not receive an apology from China for sending a surveillance balloon into United States airspace while at a diplomatic meeting in Munich.
Blinken said in an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC News’s Meet the Press that the meeting was an opportunity to emphasize the U.S.’s stance on national security after a Chinese surveillance balloon that hovered over the nation for several days was shot down earlier this month.
BLINKEN MEETS CHINESE COUNTERPART IN PERSON SINCE SPY BALLOON INCIDENT
“No, there was no apology,” Blinken said of Wang Li, China’s top diplomat. “But what I can also tell you is this was an opportunity to speak very clearly and very directly about the fact that China sent a surveillance balloon over our territory, violating our sovereignty, violating international law. And I told him quite simply that that was unacceptable and can never happen again.”
Blinken said there is “no doubt” that the spy balloon was “attempting to engage in active surveillance.”
“What is clear is that, once the balloon was over the United States and flying basically west to east, it attempted to surveil very sensitive military sites,” Blinken said. “In some cases, it loitered or returned to them as it progressed east. So, there’s no doubt in our minds at all.”
In the aftermath of the balloon incident, Blinken postponed his diplomatic trip to Beijing, and it has not been rescheduled, he said on Sunday. At the time of the cancellation, the State Department said “conditions are not right at this moment” for Blinken to travel to China, and they did not want the balloon to be the focus of the talks.
Three more objects have been shot down since the surveillance balloon was taken down on Feb. 4, but defense officials say they do not appear to be part of the Chinese surveillance program. Blinken said he did not think the U.S. overreacted in shooting down the three objects.
“We recalibrated the radars, and, as a result, we saw more things that we weren’t seeing in the past,” Blinken said. “And among those things were these three objects that were shot down that, unlike the Chinese surveillance balloon, were flying lower and posed a threat to commercial aviation.”
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Blinken said the balloon caused countries around the world to rethink unregulated airspace and subspace.
“We need to do much more, I think, to make sure that we and countries around the world have a better idea of what’s up, when, and where in order to make sure that we can proceed safely, securely, and not have objects that pose a threat to our people or to our country,” Blinken said.
