Bizarrely, the flight of the Chinese military spy balloon over the U.S. may be the occasion for U.S. concessions to Beijing, rather than the other way around.

According to a new report from Reuters, the State Department’s “China House” team was ordered to stand down on some long-planned measures targeting the Chinese Communist Party’s malfeasance, so that Secretary of State Antony Blinken can secure the trip to China that he had to cancel after the balloon incident.

Citing four State Department sources and internal emails, Reuters reveals that Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman ordered this shift to a policy that favors “engagement” with China. The head of China House, the department’s new China-policy coordination cell, told State Department staff members in March that Sherman said the department would “move on” from the balloon incident.

What this means in specific terms is worrying. State has blocked the release of an FBI investigation into the balloon’s contents that had initially been slated for mid-April, per Reuters. And two additional moves that have, in the outlet’s words, “damaged morale” at China House include State’s opposition to new restrictions tightening Washington’s campaign to strangle Huawei, and the continued delay of sanctions on Chinese Communist Party officials behind the Uyghur genocide that were originally intended to take effect last October.

Considering recent history, that’s not very surprising. Since the start of the administration, Sherman has been a force for a policy that accommodates Beijing’s concerns. In late 2021, her objections to legislation to counter Uyghur forced labor backfired, when Senator Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.) told the Washington Post that she wanted to water it down and slow-walk its passage. Congress should investigate what other steps she has taken to soften the U.S. approach to China.

But for now, the broader context is instructive: The administration is in the middle of a drive to secure another in-person meeting between President Biden and Xi Jinping. As an intermediate step, the White House apparently intends to send cabinet officials to meet their counterparts in China ahead of another summit between the two leaders.

That’s supposed to break the diplomatic logjam that followed the balloon incident, in the immediate aftermath of which Beijing rebuffed all U.S. outreach, only meaningfully engaging U.S. officials starting this month. Senior Chinese officials have conveyed the message that to secure future talks, Washington needs to offer concessions and dial back its efforts to punish Chinese human-rights atrocities and its support of Taiwan.

China’s hard line seems to have worked because, in addition to Sherman’s tacit acquiescence to Chinese demands, the administration is willing to forget the spy-balloon incident. “We’re seeking to move beyond that,” a senior administration official told reporters Thursday after national-security adviser Jake Sullivan met the party’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, in Vienna this week. That official described the Sullivan–Wang huddle as “candid, substantive, and constructive.” Meanwhile, Beijing’s favorite Biden administration interlocutor, John Kerry, says that his Chinese counterpart is picking up the phone again, after icing him out this year. America’s envoy in Beijing, Nick Burns, recently met the Chinese foreign minister in Beijing. And future visits to China by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Trade Representative Katherine Tai are the talk of the town.

But Chinese officials have been clear in all their public statements: They say that America is to blame for the frosty nature of the relationship, and they’re only willing to sit down for further conversations after Washington bends to its demands. This is both wrong on the merits — degrading Huawei further and punishing CCP officials involved in mass atrocities are worthy policies — and almost certain to grant Beijing a stronger negotiating position whenever Biden and Xi do sit down next.

It would be smarter and more honorable if the administration made it clear that the price it is willing to pay for the meeting is — nothing.