The lost opportunity caused by the balloon incident may be difficult to recreate.
about a suspected Chinese spy balloon the U.S. shot down. As fraught as the US-China relationship had been ahead of Blinken’s planned trip, it’s even worse now and there’s little hope for it improving anytime soon.
White House National Security Spokesman John Kirby noted Monday that Blinken's trip was delayed, not canceled. But prospects for rescheduling remain uncertain. The administration will be “starting at a serious deficit,” Russel said. “This is a setback but it’s not impossible to see a return. Absent mismanagement, this is recoverable.”
Diplomatic channels remain open, but for several years they have been dominated by disagreements rather than grounds for potential cooperation and they are now crowded by complaints from both sides over the balloon. Meanwhile in Beijing, after initially taking a relatively conciliatory response to the balloon, Chinese leaders have adopted a much tougher position likely in response to nationalistic public reaction. After apologizing for the balloon, which it said was a weather craft that mistakenly strayed into U.S. airspace, China now condemns the downing as an unacceptable violation of international law and standards that has set back the potential for dialogue.
At the same time, China and the United States have been on a collision course on other matters, including China’s increasing aggressiveness in the South and East China Seas, which have put U.S. allies like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand on edge, not to mention Australia and New Zealand.
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