Biden administration State Department officials held private talks with Beijing counterparts about the Chinese spy balloon that intercepted U.S. airspace in 2023, and discussed the implications the balloon’s publicity would have on the relationship between the U.S. and China, according to Trump administration officials.
U.S. officials identified the spy balloon infiltrating U.S. airspace on Jan. 28, 2023, and an Air Force fighter jet shot down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina Feb. 4, 2023, two days after the Pentagon issued a statement on the matter.
Biden officials held discussions with Beijing Feb. 1, 2023, about the balloon, and discussed the impact disclosing the balloon to the public could have on the relationship with China, internal State Department documents show, two Trump administration officials told Fox News Digital.
An internal State Department readout of the talks between Blinken and a top Chinese diplomat said Blinken stated that if the presence of the balloon were revealed publicly, it could have ‘profound implications for our relationship’ with China, particularly amid efforts to stabilize the bilateral relationship with Beijing, two Trump administration officials familiar with the documents told Fox News Digital.
The readout said that the incident could also have complicated Blinken’s travel plans to China in early February 2023, if not quickly resolved. Blinken ultimately postponed the trip until June 2023.
A former Biden administration official told Fox News Digital that the State Department summoned senior Chinese diplomat Zhu Haiquan Feb. 1, 2023, so that the U.S. could notify China to remove the balloon, and issue a warning that the U.S. could take action to eliminate the balloon.
‘Former Secretary Blinken advocated strongly to tell the American people about China’s rogue balloon, which is exactly what happened,’ a spokesperson for the former secretary of state said in a Tuesday statement to Fox News Digital. ‘He has a long history of being tough on China while actually delivering results.’
Likewise, another senior State Department official also held private talks on Feb. 1, 2023, with Chinese counterparts. A readout from that discussion says that the official claimed the longer it took to mitigate the issuewould only increase the likelihood that news of the balloon would become public, posing greater challenges managing the situation, the Trump administration officials said.
Ultimately, the Pentagon issued a statement Feb. 2, 2023, claiming that the U.S. government had detected a ‘high-altitude surveillance balloon.’
While then-White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden received a briefing on the balloon on Jan. 31, 2023, she did not provide details regarding why his administration didn’t issue a statement on the matter until Feb. 2, 2023.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, then a U.S. senator from Florida, repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for how it handled disclosing information to the public about the balloon — and how long it took the administration to shoot it down.
Biden’s failure to address the situation sooner was the ‘beginning of dereliction of duty,’ Rubio said during an appearance on CNN with Jake Tapper.
‘Why didn’t the president go on television?’ Rubio told Tapper. ‘He has the ability to convene the country in cameras and basically explain what we’re dealing with here.’
On Feb. 4, 2023, an Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jet from Virginia’s Langley Air Force Base shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.
At the time, the Pentagon said that while the balloon was not a military or physical threat, its presence in U.S. airspace did violate U.S. sovereignty. The Pentagon also shut down China’s initial claims that the balloon was a weather balloon blown off course and labeled such statements false.
‘This was a PRC surveillance balloon,’ a senior defense official told reporters at the time. ‘This surveillance balloon purposely traversed the United States and Canada, and we are confident it was seeking to monitor sensitive military sites.’
The Pentagon also said after shooting down the balloon that similar balloons from China transited continental U.S. airspace in at least three instances during Trump’s first administration.
Additionally, Biden ‘gave his authorization to take down the Chinese surveillance balloon as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to us civilians under the balloon’s path,’ the senior defense official said, noting that there was concern debris could harm civilians.
The Pentagon later said in June 2023 that it did not believe that the balloon gathered information as it traveled across the U.S.
Blinken is now a speaker with CAA Speakers, which represents high-profile celebrities.
A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately provide comment to Fox News Digital.