President Joe Biden said he intends to speak with his counterpart President Xi Jinping to defuse tensions over the US military downing of an alleged Chinese spy balloon.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden said he intends to speak with his counterpart President Xi Jinping to defuse tensions over the US military downing of an alleged Chinese spy balloon.
“We seek competition, not conflict with China. We’re not looking for a new Cold War, but I make no apologies and we will compete,” said Biden at the White House on Thursday, his first extended public remarks about the episodes, including the shooting down of several more objects that the administration has so far concluded aren’t from China.
Facing bipartisan pressure to provide Americans with more information, Biden sought to defend his handling of the incidents, saying that Feb. 4 downing of the Chinese balloon had sent “a clear message.”
“The violation of our sovereignty is unacceptable. We’ll act to protect our country, and we did,” said Biden.
The president said he is directing his administration to take steps that would lead to “safer and more secure skies” including establishing a better inventory of unmanned airborne objects, implementing measures to better detect such man-made objects in the airspace and new rules for launching those devices and well as an effort to establish global norms.
The concern over the high-altitude objects started earlier this month, when the US tracked a suspected spy balloon over the northern part of the country. That was followed by shoot-downs of unidentified objects over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron.
Biden on Thursday said he had acted “out of an abundance of caution” in downing the other mystery objects.
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