House Votes Unanimously to Condemn China Over Balloon

WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday issued a bipartisan condemnation of the Chinese Communist Party for flying a spy balloon over the United States last week, unanimously approving the move after Republican leaders rebuffed a right-wing faction that had pressed to rebuke President Biden personally for how the incident was handled.

The Chinese surveillance balloon, which was shot down by a missile from an F-22 fighter jet over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, was part of a fleet of such devices that have flown over 40 countries on five continents. The equipment on board the craft was “clearly for intelligence surveillance,” the State Department said Thursday, surmising that it could intercept and geographically pinpoint communications.

Though the anger at China over the incident has been palpable in many corners of Washington, on Capitol Hill, a significant measure of Republican furor was directed squarely at Mr. Biden. G.O.P. leaders criticized the president for not taking steps to shoot down the balloon sooner, while prominent far-right lawmakers including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who accused him of being a “coward” for not saying the word “balloon” during his State of the Union address, suggested something more sinister.

But on Thursday, Republicans put vitriol toward Mr. Biden to one side and fast-tracked a resolution that drew broad bipartisan support, passing on a lopsided vote of 419-0.

Still, G.O.P. lawmakers did not hold back on their criticism of the president during the debate.

“The balloon is a test — a test of this administration to see how it would respond,” Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on the floor. “I believe the president should have shot it down before it entered American airspace.”

The resolution itself, which was negotiated with Democrats and sponsored by Mr. McCaul, avoided any admonition of the president. That was in keeping with a pattern that has emerged in the early weeks of the 118th Congress, as lawmakers have taken pains to insulate China policy from the broader partisan warfare unfolding on most other issues and sought to find room for logging bipartisan achievements on the subject, however narrow, where they can.

Last month, the House passed a bill banning the U.S. government from selling crude oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China — a G.O.P.-led measure that won the support of 113 Democrats. Speaker Kevin McCarthy also elected to keep the party’s most ultraconservative and politically combative members out of the ranks of a new select committee focused on China, a gesture that was noted with appreciation by Democrats, who did the same on their side of the panel. One hundred and forty-six Democrats joined Republicans in the vote to create that special committee.

The vote on Thursday’s balloon resolution ensured that the bipartisan track record on China votes remained uninterrupted. But as the floor debate made clear, political tensions simmer just below the surface of such tightly controlled votes that could easily mar the camaraderie around all things China.

Democrats took to the floor to praise the Biden administration for its transparency. The vote took place just hours after senior administration officials briefed members of the House behind closed doors about the balloon incident and what they had learned regarding the capabilities of the craft.

“I thank the Biden administration for the transparency that we learned that this was not the first time that the P.R.C. balloon has transmitted over U.S. airspace,” said Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, noting that Chinese balloons had floated over the United States “at least three times,” including once during the Trump administration.

Republicans balked at the comparison.

“Does anyone in this body, does anyone in America, remember a balloon the size of three buses at 65,000 feet going from Montana to North Carolina? I mean, come on,” said Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana, who served as secretary of the interior in the Trump cabinet.