The Blubber

Lines of communication between the U.S. and Chinese military are "unfortunately" closed, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has said.

"I recognize that there are tensions, but Secretary Blinken still has an open line of communication with the foreign minister. We still have an embassy in Beijing ... and the State Department also can communicate directly with the PRC embassy personnel here," he said, referring to the People's Republic of China.

"Unfortunately, the military lines aren't open, and that's really what we would like to see amended," he said.

"There's no preconditions for a call," Kirby said. "The president will want to have a conversation with President Xi at the appropriate time."

"We will maintain the perspective that we have in terms of what should be the relationship between China and the United States," Kamala Harris recently said. "That is not going to change, but surely and certainly that balloon was not helpful."

Recently, China has said that the US should return debris from the spy balloon it shot down.

On Feb 4, the US  shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon that was flying over North America and passed sensitive military sites.

The balloon was estimated to be about the size of three school buses and was flying at around 60,000 feet. The FAA and Coast Guard cleared the airspace and water below the balloon to make way for a US operation to recover the debris from the ocean.

The balloon was spotted off the Carolina coast on Saturday morning and the FAA temporarily closed airspace over the Carolina coast, including at Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Wilmington airports.

The Coast Guard advised mariners to leave the area due to the US military operation. The balloon was originally thought to have been intended for meteorology research but the Pentagon has rejected that claim and said it was being used for surveillance.

A second Chinese surveillance balloon has been detected over Latin America.

Read more detaills: https://unusualwhales.com/news/the-us-military-shoots-down-chinese-balloon