GOP Lawmakers React to Chinese Rebuke of US Response to Spy Balloon

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, speaks at a news conference on the ongoing Afghanistan evacuations, at the U.S. Capitol on Aug. 25, 2021 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has said he would give a “very stern warning” to China’s Foreign Minister over its rebuke of the United States’ handling of a Chinese spy balloon that flew across the country in early February.

“I would send a very stern warning to him that we will not tolerate a spy balloon that’s committing espionage over the United States again,” McCaul said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Feb 19.

The comment came after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held his first bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart, during which Blinken condemned the incursion by the Chinese regime.

McCaul called China’s act “embarrassing,” adding that it caused “a lot of damage to our national security.”

According to the Pentagon, the balloon entered the United States via Alaska on Jan. 28, then traveled through Canadian airspace before reentering the United States near Billings, Montana. It then traveled southeast across the country over multiple sensitive military sites before an F-22 fighter jet shot it out of the sky off the Carolina coast a week later.

McCaul said that this caused “political damage in the sense that Americans saw this with the naked eye.”

At the Munich conference prior to the meeting, Wang Yi, the Chinese state councilor and director of Beijing’s Central Foreign Affairs Office, escalated the Chinese regime’s rhetoric against Washington, repeating its claims that the U.S. decision to have a fighter jet shoot down the spy balloon in U.S. airspace was “absurd, almost hysterical.” He demanded the United States “correct its mistakes” to “show sincerity.”

Blinken confirmed after the meeting that Wang offered “no apology” for the balloon incident.

“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,” Blinken said during an interview with NBC News. “And I told him quite simply that that was unacceptable and can never happen again.”

No Cold War

The meeting marked the first face-to-face exchange between the two countries since the surveillance balloon incident set off a public uproar in the United States and forced Blinken to cancel a previously planned visit to Beijing.

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) dismissed China’s earlier claim that it was a weather balloon that had gone off course.

“Remember the balloon was an escalation and it was not off-course from its mission. It flew over our missile defense sites or nuclear weapons sites,” Turner said in the same interview.

However, the Ohioan lawmaker saw the bilateral meeting as “an opportunity to get back to a normal dialogue with China.”

Turner agreed with President Joe Biden’s view that the United States should not seek a Cold War with the communist regime. But he did emphasize measures that could effectively deter Beijing.

“What we want is a China that is not going to be an aggressor state, that’s not going to be building up its military and threatening the United States, and certainly not making the negative comments that it’s making instead of just openly apologizing for sending a spy balloon over our most sensitive military sites,” Turner said.

Pursue Normal Relations

Biden has said he was seeking a meeting with Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping to discuss developments related to the United States’ shooting down of the spy balloon and to pursue regular relations with China.

“I expect to be speaking with President Xi, and I hope we are going to get to the bottom of this,” Biden said during a Feb. 16 press conference. “But I make no apologies for taking down that balloon.”

Thus far, the Biden administration has adopted a relatively mild response to the violation of U.S. airspace, opting to sanction six entities related to China’s military spy balloon program.

China, likewise, has issued largely symbolic sanctions on the United States’ two largest defense manufacturers, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

Despite all this, Biden underscored, the administration still does not believe it is in a cold war with the Chinese regime.

“We’ll also continue to engage with China, as we have throughout the past two weeks,” Biden said.

“As I’ve said since the beginning of my administration, we seek competition, not conflict, with China. We’re not looking for a new Cold War.”

Eva Fu and Andrew Thornebrooke contributed to this report.