The Chinese diplomat behind the window at the visa office called me and the other journalists to the table, one by one, handing us our passports. I flipped through mine until I saw the entry visa to China, valid for four days.
That seemed like a good way to start the Year of the Rabbit, which promises to be a busy year for US-China relations, a topic I cover as the newspaper’s diplomatic correspondent. The New York Times.
The other reporters and I boarded the plane the next evening with Antony J. Blinken, the US secretary of state, to spend two days in China, a country that has closed itself off from the world during the coronavirus pandemic and has only just begun. head to reopen. A US secretary of state has not visited Beijing, the capital of China, since 2018, and we made the trip to report on Mr. Blinken’s talks with President Xi Jinping and other officials. China’s other leading.
I’ve traveled around the world many times with the US secretary of state, but this trip has a personal side: I’ve covered from China for nearly a decade and am The Times’ Beijing bureau chief. before finally returning to the United States in 2016. I got married and started a family there; I have lived in Beijing, longer than any other city in my adult life. Since leaving, I’ve only been back to China once, for a brief reporting trip.
In the week before this visit, I bought gifts for old friends and arranged a reunion dinner at a favorite restaurant, Susu, located in the same quaint alleyway where I used to live. But within hours of my cycling home from the visa office, the trip was in jeopardy – by an unexpected visitor to the United States from China.
On that Thursday afternoon, February 2, Pentagon officials revealed in a press conference to reporters that they believed a mysterious white sphere bobbing in the sky of Montana was a Chinese spy balloonafter NBC News posted a article said that the US military was tracking it. Officials said they would not shoot down the balloon because of concerns that falling debris could harm people on the ground.
That night, I and other diplomatic reporters heard that Blinken and White House and Pentagon officials were debating whether to cancel his visit. We realized that the trip itself became an important part of the story.
Several Republican lawmakers released statements criticizing President Biden for not shooting down the balloon immediately. Some urged Mr. Blinken to cancel his trip; others assumed he would go, but demanded that he take a tough stance while there. Republican lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said it was “required” for Blinken to tell Xi and his government during the visit that “their military adventurism will cease to exist.” be tolerated.”
I stopped packing and went to bed in the middle of the night, still not sure what would happen.
The next morning, State Department officials told us that we should be tested for Covid-19, a standard requirement to accompany the minister. At the same time, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing issued a statement saying that the hot air balloon, a civilian machine designed to study the weather, had unfortunately gone astray. It seems that Chinese diplomats are trying to save the trip.
I had just finished my test at the State Department when agency officials asked reporters to attend a press conference in which they announced that Mr. Blinken would be canceling his trip. Mr. Biden passed the decision that morning. At a press conference that afternoon, Mr Blinken said China’s “irresponsible actions” violated US sovereignty and that he would only make the trip “when conditions permit”.
So instead of traveling to Beijing, I spent the weekend reporting to my colleague Helene Cooper, the Pentagon correspondent, about a US fighter jet shooting down a hot air balloon off the coast. South Carolina Sea. We also reported on fallout: the search for debris, the increasing tension in US-China relations and reveal about global hot air balloon monitoring program directed by the People’s Liberation Army of China.
Television networks are covering non-stop; People all over the country posted about spotting the balloon as it drifted from above the Rocky Mountains to the Midwest Plains to the Atlantic Coast. I received messages from family members and friends throughout the weekend asking about hot air balloons.
As theories and speculations spread, I contacted government sources and China experts I had known for years; This type of story has always caused a scramble in the Washington press to find limited pieces of information. US officials only learn about the balloon’s capabilities in real time, and we continue to update our articles as we have factual information.
I would probably spend more time covering China than if I had actually accompanied Mr. Blinken on his diplomatic trip to Beijing.
My friends and I in China are disappointed that the trip has been cancelled, but we know that the fluctuating activities of international diplomacy and espionage are beyond our control.
That Saturday night, hours after the balloon was shot down, I attended a good friend’s birthday dinner at a newly opened Chinese restaurant in downtown Washington. All the guests knew each other from our years in Beijing. We ate duck, wished each other rice wine, and listened to a song one of the hosts had asked to hear, Nena’s “99 Luftballons.”
