President Biden Will Talk to Chinese Leader Xi Jinping About Balloons: We're Not Looking for a New Cold War

President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden. (Twitter/@POTUS)

JAKARTA - President Joe Biden said Thursday he looked forward to talking to Chinese President Xi Jinping about what the United States says was a Chinese spy balloon that was shot down by a US fighter jet earlier this month.

"We are not looking for a new cold war," said President Biden, launching Reuters February 17.

President Biden, in his most extensive remarks about the Chinese balloon and the three unidentified objects dropped by the US, did not say when he would speak to President Xi, but said the United States continued to engage diplomatically with China on the matter.

"I look forward to talking to President Xi, I hope we will sort this out, but I make no apologies for taking down the balloon," President Biden said in response to complaints from Beijing.

After his speech, he told NBC News: "I think the last thing President Xi wants is to fundamentally damage relations with the United States and with me."

China says the 200-foot balloon is for monitoring weather conditions, but Washington says it is clearly a surveillance balloon with a large bottom filled with electronics.

President Biden, who has made little public comment about a spate of aerial objects starting with a Chinese balloon, broke his silence after lawmakers demanded more information about the incident, which has baffled many Americans.

He said the US intelligence community was still trying to learn more about the three unidentified objects: one that was shot down over Alaska, one over Canada and a third that fell into Lake Huron.

Retrieval of the wreckage of a Chinese spy balloon by the US Navy. (Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tyler Thompson)

The US government said they were brought down because they were a threat to civil aviation.

"We don't yet know exactly what these three objects are, but nothing at this time indicates that they are related to China's spy balloon program or that they are reconnaissance vehicles from another country," said President Biden.

The intelligence community believes the objects "are most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreational or research institutions," President Biden said.

He further explained that they may have been spotted due to improved radar in response to the Chinese balloons.

"That's why I directed my team to come back to me with sharper rules for how we will handle these unidentified objects going forward, distinguishing between those likely to pose a safety and security risk that require action and those that don't."

President Biden said the results of the administration's review of how to handle unidentified objects going forward would be classified and shared with relevant members of Congress.

"These parameters will remain confidential so we don't give our adversaries a roadmap to try to circumvent our defenses," he said.

Biden's remarks follow reports that the China balloon, which crashed on February 4 after crossing the continental United States, originally had a trajectory that would have passed Guam and Hawaii but was blown away by gusts of wind.

The incident prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a planned February visit to Beijing, where the two sides are trying to stabilize already fraught ties.

While The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, the US military and intelligence agencies tracked the balloon since it took off from China's southern island province of Hainan.

Asked earlier about President Biden's remarks, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Thursday again referred to the downed balloon as an "unmanned civilian aircraft", and said its flight into US airspace was an "isolated" incident.

The US "should be willing to meet China halfway, manage differences and appropriately deal with isolated and unexpected incidents to avoid misunderstanding and misjudgment, promote the return of US-China relations to a path of healthy and stable development," spokesman Wang said. Wenbin told reporters in a routine briefing.

Beijing has criticized Washington for overreacting by shooting down balloons, and warned of "retaliatory measures against relevant US entities undermining China's sovereignty and security."

On Thursday, China placed Lockheed Martin Corp and a unit of Raytheon Technologies Corp on a sanctions list over arms sales to Taiwan, barring them from China-related imports and exports.

Lockheed made the F-22 Raptor fighter jet that flew the mission to shoot down the Chinese balloon, while Raytheon made the AIM-9X Sidewinder missile that knocked it out of the sky.