But while bilateral tensions have risen in the past few days over the balloon incident, Beijing and Washington have been trying to mend ties.
The discovery of the balloon in the upper atmosphere over North America prompted the United States to postpone a visit to Beijing this week by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. That trip resulted from a summit between President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in November.
The two sides are widely seen as keen to stabilize ties after a turbulent few years, with the Biden administration plunging into the conflict amid tensions and Xi leading the world’s second-largest economy into a severe COVID-19 recession. Looking at recovery.
Zhao Tong, a senior fellow in the China office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a visiting researcher at Princeton University, said the path to rebuilding US-China relations remains on track.
“The two sides still have a common interest in stabilizing and responsibly managing bilateral relations,” Zhao said.
sweep under the rug
Colin Koh, a security fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, predicted that China would continue to respond vigorously to US military reconnaissance patrols but downplay confrontation.
The regional military attaché says that even in moments of calm, Chinese forces actively shadow US military patrols, particularly at sea, amid tensions over Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea.
Koh said, “Against manned platforms we can expect China to exercise restraint, but against unmanned ones it becomes more uncertain – especially if Beijing believes there is no crew involved.” So it is possible to decline.”
They noted China’s seizure of a US underwater glider deployed by an oceanographic research ship off the Philippines in December 2016. The Chinese Navy later returned it to the US warship.
Christopher Twomey, a security scholar at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California, said any Chinese response would be limited.
“I expect they will put up a minor protest but hopefully sweep it under the rug and restore progress on senior-level visits within months,” Toomey said, speaking in a private capacity.