President Joe Biden is expected to speak with President Xi Jinping soon about the Chinese 'spy' balloon shot down by the US earlier this month.
President Joe Biden is expected to speak with Xi Jinping soon about the Chinese balloon shot down by the US earlier this month, in a bid to end a dispute that has exposed the fragility of ties between the world's largest economies. indicates the will of.
Biden revealed plans for the call as part of his most comprehensive remarks yet about the balloon saga, which has led the US to destroy three other still-unidentified objects. He pledged to "responsibly manage" competition with China "so that it does not devolve into conflict" – a sentiment echoed when the two leaders pledged to improve ties during their November meeting.
"I look forward to talking with President Xi, and I hope we have -- we're going to get to the bottom of this," Biden said in remarks at the White House. ,
Biden, who plans to visit Europe before the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion, did not specify when he would like to speak with Xi. Since taking office two years ago, Biden has repeatedly leveraged his personal relationship with Xi to prevent disputes from escalating -- forged when the two leaders served as vice presidents.
Biden and Xi also spoke after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and days before then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August. Their first face-to-face meeting on the Indonesian resort island of Bali in November appeared to represent a success, part of a broader push by Xi to reduce diplomatic disputes and focus on rebuilding its Covid-battered economy. was coming as
"Without clear instructions from above, it is difficult for lower levels to properly manage the incident," said Vivian Zhan, associate professor of Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. To the extent that it harms America's interests as much as it does China's, it needs to be controlled."
In another sign that both sides are eager to turn the page, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is said to be meeting with China's top diplomat Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference starting on Friday. The balloon's transit over the US and Canada prompted Blinken to cancel a trip to Beijing that had been planned in the wake of the previous Biden-Xi meeting.
While China initially expressed regret over what it said was the balloon's accidental passage over US territory, it has denied that the craft was for espionage and called the decision to shoot it down as "exaggerated". Condemned it.
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