Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) contended that China’s suspected spy balloon was a “clear message” to the United States.
“It’s not a coincidence that this happens leading up to the State of the Union address, leading up to Blinken’s visit to China. The Chinese knew that this was going to be spotted. They knew that we were going to have to react to it. They flew it over military installations and sensitive sites,” Rubio said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
WICKER CALLS BIDEN HANDLING OF CHINESE SPY BALLOON A ‘DISASTROUS PROJECTION OF WEAKNESS’
Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed his trip to China amid the developments. China apologized for the incursion into U.S. airspace, but denied claims that it was a spy balloon. Instead the country is insisting the device was for civilian meteorological purposes — Beijing notably has a policy of civil-military fusion. The Pentagon has rejected those claims.
Pentagon officials claim that there have been at least four other instances of Chinese balloons intruding upon U.S. airspace, including three times under the Trump administration. Rubio argued this time was different because of the flagrant nature of its flight path.
“What is unprecedented is a balloon flight that entered over Idaho and flew over Montana over all the sensitive military installations, Air Force bases, ICBM fields — right across the middle of the country. That has never happened before, that is unprecedented. That it flew briefly over some part of the U.S. or continental U.S. — that’s one thing. But what we saw this week, it’s unprecedented,” Rubio added.
A fighter jet shot down the balloon on Saturday after it left the continental U.S., and the military is expected to retrieve remnants of the device to inspect it for any possible intelligence. Rubio, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he wasn’t briefed on whether any scraps were retrieved and noted that he likely won’t be able to disclose that to the public once he gets the briefing.
“China has been for some time, and will be the primary strategic adversary of the United States, and we should be focused on it. Because what they’re trying to do is create a world in which they are the most powerful nation and the United States is a great power in decline. That is what they believe to be the case,” Rubio added. “We have to determine whether we’re going to allow the world to head in that direction or not.”
China condemned the U.S. strike that downed the balloon, which is believed to have hovered around U.S. and Canadian airspace for about eight days. The Pentagon disclosed the existence of the device to the public last Thursday following local media reports of the citing. Rubio knocked the Biden administration for its lack of transparency on the matter.
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“I think the dereliction of duty begins with this — why not on Tuesday or Wednesday — you know people are gonna see this. At some point, you’re gonna have to disclose it. And they probably didn’t want to because they didn’t want to have their hand forced on canceling this Blinken visit. And so they didn’t,” Rubio argued.
President Joe Biden is set to deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
