President Joe Biden ordered the Pentagon to shoot down an unidentified object over Alaska on Friday, less than a week after a US warplane fired a missile to shoot down a Chinese surveillance balloon over the Atlantic Ocean.
John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, confirmed the Alaska incident in response to a question from the voice of america during the White House press briefing on Friday.
While the United States does not yet know details about the object’s “capabilities, purpose, or origin,” according to officials, the unidentified high-altitude object once again put a spotlight on the frayed relationship between Washington and Beijing following the disclosure. of the Chinese surveillance balloon.
On Friday, VOA’s Mandarin-language White House correspondent Paris Huang spoke with Kirby about US-China relations, as well as the latest developments in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
WOW: China continues to deny that the balloon is for spying. How do you read China’s handling of the whole situation?
John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications: I don’t think we’re particularly surprised by the Chinese denials. Look, we had time to gather information on this, to inspect this device. We trust what we have been saying: that it was in fact a surveillance balloon, that it is not uncommon for the PLA to [Ejército Popular de Liberación] outsource these types of capabilities. We know they’ve been flown over 40 or 50 other countries, we’re getting closer to those countries as we speak, and now we’re going to recover the wreckage, the debris that’s at the bottom, off the coast of the Carolinas, and we’re going to learn even more.
WOW: Will the United States advise countries to shoot down balloons that appear on their territories?
Kirby: We’re spending time and energy notifying these countries about the forensic work we’ve done and what we know this particular PLA spy balloon program is up to, that’s the focus of those talks.
WOW: During the State of the Union address, President Biden said, “Name me a world leader who would trade places with Xi Jinping.” What do you mean by that?
Kirby: His point is that the PRC [República Popular China] he is not 10 feet tall. That this is a country, despite how big and vast it is, is having economic problems, he also has domestic problems at home. They haven’t been totally transparent about COVID, but they are still suffering from some of the side effects of the pandemic. And I think the president’s point was that in this strategic competition of ours, the United States is uniquely poised to succeed.
WOW: The Wagner Group claims to have stopped recruiting Russian convicts for the war in Ukraine. Can US intelligence confirm this?
Kirby: I will let Mr. [Yevgeny] Prigozhin speak for your recruiting tactics. Perhaps one of the reasons he is not recruiting outside of the prisons is because he has already emptied them all. We know he’s been getting a lot of convicts into this fight. And that he has a vested interest here in trying to upstage the Ministry of Defense, and he probably has a vested interest in some of the economic gains.
The most important point is that Mr. [Vladimir] Putin, after repeatedly failing to achieve any strategic goal inside Ukraine, now increasingly relies on others to prop up his effort. He is going to Iran to buy drones. He’s venturing to North Korea to get artillery shells, and now he’s using a guy like Mr. Prigozhin, a private military contractor, to conduct military operations on the battlefield. I think that says a lot about how much Putin realizes that his own army has been failing.
WOW: Ukraine said it had intercepted Russia’s plans to destroy Moldova. You can confirm?
Kirby: I cannot confirm that report.
WOW: Russia today launched a new wave of missile attacks on Ukraine. What can the United States do to help Ukraine defend its skies more effectively?
Kirby: We have prioritized air defense in many of the recent security assistance packages that we have been giving Ukraine. As you know, we also announced that we will be providing a complete Patriot battery. In fact, training for Ukrainian soldiers to use that Patriot battery is going on right now in Oklahoma. We have prioritized air defense, whether short, medium, or long-range for much of the past few weeks and months, and will continue to do so in the future.
WOW: Moscow announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Russia, probably on the anniversary of the invasion. Her reaction to him?
Kirby: I’ll just say this, without confirming this trip or what Russia’s motivations are for talking to him. Putin is isolated; he’s made his country even more of a pariah than it already was after Ukraine was first invaded in 2014. And he’s desperate for help, because exports and export controls and sanctions have taken a big bite out of him. to his defense of industrial progress. . He is having trouble supplying microelectronics for cruise missiles. He is reaching out to Iran for drones, he is reaching out to North Korea for munitions, and he relies on private military contractors. This is a man who doesn’t have many friends in the world.
WOW: How much goodwill remains between the US and China, and how sure are you that it can be rebuilt?
Kirby: We do not seek conflict with China. And we want to keep the lines of communication open, especially at a time like this. But we do look for a strategic contest in which the president believes the United States is well positioned to win.
Now is not the appropriate time for the Secretary of State to go to Beijing. When the time is right, we will be willing to have those talks with Beijing.
The entire world expects these two countries to handle this important bilateral relationship in a responsible, frank and prudent manner. That’s where President Biden is still. That’s where he wants to take it. And his ability to do that is not helped by this flagrant violation of our airspace.
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