China, US not talking amid spy balloon furor as fears grow

WASHINGTON — In the hours after the US sent an F-22 Raptor to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon that traversed North American airspace last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s call to Beijing went unanswered.

The snub by China was the latest sign of frayed US communications with its great adversary — leading to fears that a relatively minor incident could spiral into something bigger.

Beijing largely shut down “communication vehicles” with Washington after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defied Biden administration warnings by visiting Taiwan in August, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said last week.

Those vehicles include a deconfliction phone line, meant to offer the two nations a way to ease tensions and communicate explanations and intentions. Keeping the channel open is critical, as defense experts regularly warn that misunderstandings — if not promptly addressed — can lead to full-scale war.

“We should never forget that we maintained diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, even in those dark days [at the Cold War’s height in] the ’60s and ’70s,” retired Navy Adm. Harry Harris told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday. “So, I hope that we get back on some diplomatic footing with the [People’s Republic of China]. It’s important in both countries that we do so.”

Ironically, Secretary of State Antony Blinken had made working out how to reopen lines of communication with China part of the agenda for his planned trip to Beijing, which was due to take place earlier this week but was postponed after the spy balloon’s intrusion became public.

As a result, when the Pentagon asked to hold a secure call between Austin and his Chinese counterpart, Wei Fenghe, the answer was a resounding “no.”

The Chinese Ministry of National Defense, which still refuses to admit the balloon was conducting surveillance, said the Austin call was declined because the US “seriously violated international practices and set a very bad precedent” by downing the device they claim was a “civilian unmanned airship” meant for scientific research that drifted off-course due to “force majeure.”

“In view of the US side’s irresponsible and seriously wrong practice, which had failed to create a proper atmosphere for dialogue and exchange between the two militaries, China didn’t accept the US proposal for a phone call between the two defense chiefs,” ministry spokesman Senior Col. Tan Kefei said Thursday.

While most lawmakers applauded Blinken scrapping his planned China trip, one expert told members of Congress Tuesday it was a missed chance to have tough conversations with Beijing’s leaders.

“We need those high-level contacts,” said Melanie Sisson, foreign policy fellow at the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology. “It would have been an opportunity to discuss crisis management, for example, in addition to being able to press the [Chinese Communist Party] on their other such problematic behaviors worldwide.”

Harris, who previously led the US Navy’s Indo-Pacific Command and served as an ambassador to South Korea during the Trump administration, said China’s excuses as well as the timing of the balloon deployment just before Blinken’s scheduled visit indicated “tone-deaf behavior.”

“They claimed that it was a weather balloon that went off course, yet they didn’t tell us it was going off course until we discovered it,” he said. “It just beggars imagination what they’re saying over there.”