Nope.
CHINA RESORTS TO THE SILENT TREATMENT WITH TOP US OFFICIALS AFTER SPY FLIGHT SHOOTDOWN
Waiting for Biden to get to the China spy balloon during his State of the Union speech was almost as agonizing as the flight itself.
US President Joe Biden, center, speaks during a State of the Union address at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. Biden didn't admit how he failed to handle the China spy balloon disaster. (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Just as the spy balloon drifted over American military bases for days, Biden unhurriedly covered a wide range of topics before getting around to the war in Ukraine and then to China.
You had to sit through Biden’s pitch for the Junk Fee Prevention Act targeting fees for resorts, concert tickets and airline seats. I hate those fees, too, but seriously?
After a long wait, Biden led off with his old China policy. "I’ve made clear with President Xi that we seek competition, not conflict," Biden said for the hundredth time. Whatever that means. Here was Biden’s strongest statement: "as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did."
After three days of watching China’s balloon in the skies and the sensational shoot-down, that was it. I bet that didn’t bother Xi Jinping one bit.
"The president’s refusal to stand up to China, our most formidable adversary, is dangerous and unacceptable," Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in her official GOP response. So true.
I can’t figure out whether Biden is compromised on China or just complacent. Either way, the fact is Biden’s China policy has been a disaster from day one and top Democrats know it. Democrat Maryland Senator Ben Cardin put it much better in Baltimore-strong language. "We have to recognize that China is our adversary," Cardin said Tuesday afternoon.
Why couldn’t Biden say that?
Cardin went on to call out China over Ukraine, Taiwan, the South China Seas, the Uyghurs and others. The Chinese "are going to continue to take actions against America’s interests," Cardin warned. Cardin has long been involved in oversight of the special homeland security needs of the Washington, D.C. metro area. I bet he’s had a briefing or two on how tricky it is to intercept anything launched at the White House from along the East Coast.
Just as the spy balloon drifted over American military bases for days, Biden unhurriedly covered a wide range of topics before getting around to the war in Ukraine and then to China. You had to sit through Biden’s pitch for the Junk Fee Prevention Act targeting fees for resorts, concert tickets and airline seats. I hate those fees, too, but seriously?
I’m particularly disgusted with Biden’s ongoing refusal to accept responsibility for national security missteps – for the botched Afghanistan withdrawal of 2021, for doing too little to deter Putin from invading Ukraine, and now, for waiting too long to shoot down China’s spy balloon over America.
Pretty much everybody believes the balloon should have been shot down before transiting America. Biden must take that blame.
Fresh details revealed on Monday show just how long Biden sat back. General Glen VanHerck, U.S. Air Force, Commander, U.S. Northern Command, said his team monitored the balloon coming in from Alaska and through Canada, as it took a "purpose-built" path to "strategically position themselves to utilize the winds to traverse portions of countries that they want to see for collection purposes."
As Sanders said, "President Biden is unwilling to defend our border, defend our skies, and defend our people. He is simply unfit to serve as commander in chief."
US forces recover debris from a shot-down Chinese surveillance balloon. (US Fleet Forces)
Biden has kept the same national security team in place so he must think they are doing a great job. I can’t agree. Apparently, China would not pick up the phone when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin tried to call after the balloon shoot-down. That is dangerous, given that the U.S. has spent years trying to cultivate military dialogue with China to keep lines of communication open in case of a crisis.
By the way, China now has more land-based nuclear missiles than the U.S. United States Strategic Command just notified Congress of that frightening fact.
At least Gen. VanHerck at Northern Command noted intelligence failures and admitted Northern Command did not detect and track earlier balloon threats. He acknowledged a "domain awareness gap" and I expect he will fix it.
The solution to the "awareness gap" at the White House must wait for 2024. I hope China doesn’t take advantage of this weak American president before then.