China’s Balloon Was Part of Planned Posturing Ahead of Blinken’s Beijing Visit

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The Chinese reconnaissance balloon, shot down by the U.S. Air Force last Saturday, may have been just one of numerous planned incidents by Beijing aimed at increasing its bargaining power in the negotiations scheduled with U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken for this week.

Blinken was supposed to visit Beijing on Feb. 5, but had to canceled the trip at the last minute in the face of heated public outcry over China’s intrusion into U.S. airspace. His trip was originally arranged during a meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden at last November’s G20 summit in Indonesia.

To understand why Beijing’s leaders may have decided to take the risk of provoking anger from the U.S. public by sending an airship into U.S. airspace, it is necessary to go back and review how Blinken’s visit to Beijing was originally arranged.

The focus of Biden and Xi’s meeting in last November had been about the security of Taiwan. Therefore, Blinken’s visit to Beijing was supposed to be a follow up event that would see both sides arrange the further security details supporting peace in the Taiwan Strait.

However, Taiwan has been a red line subject for the Chinese regime. Beijing did not want to risk seeing Blinken walk away from the negotiation table with some sort of temporary peace deal on the Taiwan Strait without paying a very high price.

Following the approach of Beijing’s so-called “wolf-warrior diplomacy,” it is possible that the Chinese leadership strategically planned a series of incidents after the G20 meeting, with the purpose of creating a high price tag for Blinken’s negotiations in Beijing.

On Christmas Day, 2022, the Chinese military conducted its largest air offense drills in the Taiwan Strait, with total 71 military planes joining the drill, and 47 of them crossing the median line of the strait to provoke Taiwan.

The median line of Taiwan Strait has been considered as a de facto border line between China and Taiwan.

On Dec. 21, a Chinese fighter jet directly approached a U.S. military reconnaissance plane flying in international airspace above the South China Sea. At one point, the Chinese jet came just 20 feet away from the U.S. plane, according to reports from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. The U.S. plane had to take action to change its flight direction in order to avoid the real risk of a crash.

Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoling led two destroyers sailing through Miyako Strait on Dec. 16, and conducted a naval offensive drill later in an area within 150 miles of Japan’s Okinawa and about 500 miles from Guam. Both Okinawa and Guam have U.S. military bases.

On Jan. 30, just days before Blinken’s visit per the original arrangement, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said that Taiwan is “the No. 1 red line” for the Chinese regime, and stated that Blinken should not expect he can cross the line.

Mao also charged the United States for triggering the Russia-Ukraine War and creating the conditions for it to last so long.

Following Mao’s comments, the Chinese military conducted another military drill on Jan. 31 with nine naval battle ships and 34 military planes. According to reports from Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, 24 Chinese military planes had also crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Jan. 30.

Also on Jan. 30, Russian state media TASS reported that China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, would visit Moscow on Feb. 20 to make arrangements for a later visit by Xi in the spring. Beijing has yet to officially confirm Xi’s visit, but the news itself also served the purpose of raising the bar for Blinken’s visit.

Alongside Beijing’s other posturing activities, the spy balloon incident could be its lastest one designed to test the U.S. government’s strength, and to ensure that Blinken would pay a high price to sit at the negotiation table in Beijing.

However, Beijing miscalculated one thing: the weight of the American public opinion.

Beijing’s leaders never take any of their own citizens’ public opinions to heart, because in China, the regime can easily censor public opinion to bring it under control.

The Chinese Communist Regime (CCP) did not expect to see such a huge public pressure on Biden and Blinken after Americans learned there was a Chinese spy balloon flying in their skies.

Americans’ public outcry has become the last straw, ended any possibility of Blinken visiting Beijing last week.

Now the question becomes: will Xi still go to Moscow to meet Putin?

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.