China is refusing to let US secretary of state Antony Blinken visit Beijing over concerns that the FBI will release the results of an investigation into the downed suspected Chinese spy balloon,
Financial Times reports.
Four people familiar with the negotiations said China had told the US it was not prepared to reschedule a trip that Blinken cancelled in February while it remains unclear what the administration of President Joe Biden will do with the report.
The FBI has been analysing debris salvaged from the balloon since it was shot down in February. The US says the craft was spying on sensitive military sites, but China say it was a weather balloon blown off course by weather.
Chinese officials are concerned the Biden administration could release the FBI report along with physical evidence from the balloon, and that its findings could be made public during Blinken’s trip to China.
China’s foreign minister Qin Gang raised the issue with Americans attending the China Development Forum in Beijing last month, said three people familiar with the meeting.
Qin described the FBI investigation as another example of the issues that have made it difficult to stabilise US-China ties, one of the people said. US officials stress the crisis was sparked by China flying the balloon through the country’s airspace.
The FBI and National Security Council declined to say whether the investigation would be made public.
The issue has also sparked divisions inside the Biden administration, with some officials wanting to declassify the evidence for public release to show that the balloon was conducting surveillance. Congress is also likely to press for the release of the FBI’s conclusions.
But others say releasing the information would derail efforts to restart badly needed high-level engagement between the countries at a time when US-China relations are at their lowest level since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1979.
Blinken was supposed to meet President Xi Jinping in China in February but abruptly cancelled his trip because of the balloon.
