(PartiallyPolitics.com) On Wednesday during an interview with PBS NewsHour President Biden said that he did not believe the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon incident had a negative effect on the relationship with Beijing.
President Biden said that he had not spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping since the first report about the balloon having entered the U.S. airspace had come out. The balloon traveled across the U.S. before being shot down on Saturday of that same week. However, Biden said that he doubted that having shot down a balloon that may have been collecting intelligence in America would be seen as a move that made relations worse.
Biden added that he had previously informed Xi Jinping that they were fully planning on competing with China, but that they were not “looking for conflict.” He added that so far that has been exactly what has been going on. He added that the Chinese president had to deal with some “enormous problems” domestically, including the country’s economy and questions about whether or not he should support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden only briefly mentioned during the State of the Union address the balloon incident to further drive home the point that China was a threat to U.S. sovereignty and that he would do everything possible to protect the country.
On Wednesday China said that the State of the Union address had smeared them and their Foreign Ministry official had claimed that his country was “opposed to defining the entire China-U.S. relationship in terms of competition.”
Copyright 2023, PartiallyPolitics.com