President Joe Biden’s public response to the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon continues to be very mild.
During an interview with Telemundo’s Julio Vaqueiro, the president was asked if he regretted not shooting down the balloon sooner.
“No, I think the experts, the intelligence community, defense community, they’ve forgotten more about it than you or I know. I said I wanted it shot down as soon as possible,” Biden began.
He went on:
“They were worried about the damage it could be done, even in a big state like Montana. This thing was gigantic. What would happen if it came down and hit a school in a rural area? What would happen if it came down?”
The interview then drew a baffling response from Biden when Vaqueiro asked, “And wasn’t it a major security breach for the United States? Just the fact that the balloon came into the airspace.”
“Look, the total amount of intelligence gathering that’s going on by every country around the world is overwhelming,” Biden responded.
He added, “The idea that a balloon could traverse … break American airspace … Anyway, it’s not a major breach. I mean, look, it’s totally a violation of international law. It’s our airspace, and once it comes in our airspace, we can do what we want.
Watch the video below:
The exchange comes nearly a week after an F-22 shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina.
It is kind of expected and known other countries are trying to gather intelligence about the U.S., just as the U.S. does to them.
However, the idea the president would dismiss a country flying a massive balloon, which reportedly weighed thousands of pounds and potentially carried explosives for self-detonation, over the continental U.S. as not a “major” breach is baffling.
It certainly helps that the balloon floated over the country without incident until it reached the Atlantic Ocean.
However, consider what would have happened if something went wrong with the balloon and it came crashing down from 60,000 feet over an American town. Presumably, Chinese officials had confidence such a malfunction would not occur before they launched it. But accidents happen. Would Biden’s response have been the same?
If his comment is an attempt to prevent the balloon from spiraling into a massive incident and further straining U.S.-China relations, that is understandable. However, it is a worthwhile exercise to ponder how China would have responded if they caught the U.S. flying a balloon near their mainland military installations.
There is a lot of room for Biden to condemn the incident in stronger terms without it spiraling. He got close to it in his State of the Union when he committed to working with China to advance the two countries’ interests. But the part of deterring future incidents has been underwhelming.