Biden to speak with Xi about balloon incident

President Joe Biden said on Thursday he expects to speak with China‍‍`s president, Xi Jinping, about what the United States says was a Chinese spy balloon that a US fighter jet shot down early this month after it transited the United States.

"We are not looking for a new cold war," Biden said.

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

"I expect to be speaking with President Xi. I hope we are going to get to the bottom of this, but I make no apologies for taking down that balloon," Biden said in response to complaints from Beijing.

Separately, the Pentagon‍‍`s top China official, Michael Chase, plans to visit Taiwan in the coming days, the Financial Times reported, citing sources. Chase would be the most senior US defence official to visit the island since 2019. China claims the democratically governed island as its own, while the US for decades has followed a non-committal policy.

After the speech, Biden told NBC News: “I think the last thing that Xi wants is to fundamentally rip the relationship with the United States and with me."

China says the 60-metre balloon shot down was for monitoring weather conditions, but Washington says it clearly was a surveillance balloon with a massive undercarriage containing electronics.