U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in the first bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart, condemned the Beijing regime’s act of sending a surveillance balloon over U.S. airspace.
“Just met with the PRC’s top diplomat, Wang Yi,“ Blinken wrote on Twitter after their meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. ”I condemned the incursion of the PRC surveillance balloon and stressed it must never happen again. I warned China against providing [material] support to Russia. I also emphasized the importance of keeping open lines of communication.”
Blinken told NBC News after the meeting that Wang, the Chinese state councilor and director of Beijing’s Central Foreign Affairs Office, offered “no apology” for the balloon incident.
“There was no apology,” Blinken said. “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.”
That canceled trip would have been the first one taken by a U.S. secretary of state to China in five years, which the administration had seen as a chance to smooth over relations that had already deteriorated after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit in 2022.
Blinken “made clear the United States will not stand for any violation of our sovereignty, and that the PRC’s high altitude surveillance balloon program—which has intruded into the air space of over 40 countries across 5 continents—has been exposed to the world,” according to a readout from State Department spokesperson Ned Price.
Hours after Wang’s comments, Blinken left his Munich hotel for an undisclosed location, ignoring a shouted question from a reporter about whether he was going to meet with Wang as he entered his vehicle in the hotel garage.
But President Joe Biden and administration officials have stressed that they want to keep the lines of communication open and aren’t looking for conflicts.
“We’ll also continue to engage with China, as we have throughout the past two weeks,” he said.
Blinken reiterated Biden’s statements at the meeting with Wang, saying that “the United States will compete and will unapologetically stand up for our values and interests but that we do not want conflict with the PRC and are not looking for a new Cold War,” according to Price.
“The Secretary underscored the importance of maintaining diplomatic dialogue and open lines of communication at all times.”
When asked about the meeting, the State Department directed The Epoch Times to its official statement.