US postpones Blinken trip to China over 'spy balloon' incident

Balloon lingered over sensitive US nuclear sites; China says it is civilian in nature’

WASHINGTON The Biden administration has decided to postpone Secretary of State Antony Blinken's upcoming trip to Beijing after detecting a Chinese surveillance balloon that was lingering at high altitude over sensitive nuclear sites in the United States, Bloomberg reported on Friday.

Mr Blinken was set to have meetings in Beijing early next week in the first such visit by a top US diplomat in five years.

But the presence of the balloon which the Pentagon decided not to shoot down - led officials to decide that going now would send the wrong signal, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations.

White House and State Department officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China took unusually conciliatory steps to smooth over the incident on Friday, with the Foreign Ministry saying it was "regretful" that a "civilian airship" entered US airspace because of forces beyond its control. It said the balloon was conducting climate research.

The balloon was first spotted earlier this week and had been loitering over Montana, home to intercontinental ballistic missile silos, a senior Defence Department official said on Wednesday. The official said the balloon posed no intelligence threat and such incursions have happened before.

But the Pentagon's announcement about the balloon on Thursday prompted an outcry from Republican lawmakers, with Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of a new House committee meant to highlight the Chinese threat, saying the presence of the balloon "makes clear that the CCP's recent diplomatic overtures do not represent a substantive change in policy", referring to the Communist Party of China.