Salvage efforts are
currently underway
after a US fighter jet
shot the balloon down yesterday.
You watched it right here
live on television.
The downing of the balloon
ended a week long saga as it man
across the country,
possibly gathering data.
Joining me now to talk more abou
this is my CNN colleague, Fareed
He is the host of Fareed Zakaria
Good to see you, Fareed.
So China is reprimand
and no surprise here,
but China is reprimanding or thr
the US after the balloon take do
So if relations between the U.S.
and China were tenuous.
What is it now?
Well, I think what it shows is t
these kind of small crises
can escalate out of control
in a frankly very dangerous way.
If we step back and ask ourselve
what was this crisis,
how unprecedented was it
to have this event?
Was it some kind of an escalatio
Well, look,
we now know that there have been
like these that have passed
across the United States in the
Apparently, there was one last y
There were three during the Trum
presidency.
Nobody ever thought
to do anything about it.
So why this time?
Well, perhaps
because it could be seen by came
So it really is the optics of it
There's this
you know,
the Chinese
have about 600 military satellit
hovering around the world.
They have photographed
every square inch of the United
There are other means
by which you can get this stuff.
Of course,
the United States is
the world's greatest.
Has the world's
greatest intelligence capabiliti
we spy on the Chinese all the ti
Using many, many different mecha
So that seems something a little
irrational.
All about suddenly
having this kind of paranoid att
about one
balloon that we happened to see
when we did nothing about ones t
that had passed through before.
But how do we know
if one really knows whether U.S.
intelligence or U.S.
military were able to discern
what that balloon was doing?
It's just publicly
it hasn't been revealed
and they ascertained that it was
or it is a national security thr
and thereby justifies their appr
We don't know all of that.
But isn't that a possible.
Well, we don't know that.
We don't know that.
But we have a long history of
when these kind of things happen
Intelligence agencies in the gov
inflate the threat,
tell you
that there's some kind of vital
that there wasn't.
This is
the same intelligence
agencies told us Saddam
Hussein had nuclear weapons.
So one has to take that
with a healthy dose of skepticis
given what
I said, the facts,
which is everybody
who knows anything about this
subject says
you can get much more
and much better images
that we're using, spy satellites
The Chinese have sent these
kind of balloons up in the past
There is there's a question of
how are we reacting to
what is the rise of a real compe
a competitor.
And it feels somewhat like somet
to me, like a reaction based
on optics, domestic politics,
Biden administration,
worried about what
the Republicans were saying.
It doesn't feel serious.
The idea that the secretary of s
should postpone a visit to China
for this
look and knowing what you know,
the Chinese
knowing what you know
now in terms of the president
even coming out yesterday,
saying he made this call on Wedn
but then his military advisers s
wait until it's over water.
Did that in any way?
Because I know you did come out
strongly on Friday
saying it was a mistake
to postpone the secretary of sta
Tony Blinken, his trip to China,
knowing what you know now.
Given we don't know everything
about what was behind
the president's decision
or the timing of it, do you beli
it would have been wise
for the secretary of state to be
and the White House
and Department of Defense
knew that they were waiting for
this balloon to be over U.S.
waters, which they would
calculate would be by the weeken
Would it be wise or detrimental
for the secretary of state to be
while the takedown of
its balloon was taking place?
Look, the fundamental
question is,
are we talking to the Chinese
as a gift to them
or are we talking to the Chinese
to secure America's
interests in the world,
to secure a degree of predictabi
and reliability between the rela
of the two largest economies in
and a country that is a competit
In my view,
the reason we talk to the Chines
the reason the United States
has relations
with other great powers,
is because we are trying
to secure America's interests.
We are trying
to stabilize a relationship
that could go out of control.
Remember, the Chinese
are nuclear power
with intercontinental ballistic
That's why
we have talked to the Soviet Uni
during the Cold War.
That's why we talk to other coun
And it feels to me
like the whole image here is tha
these visits are some kind of,
you know, a candy or good or gif
that we are giving the Chinese
to be withdrawn
when there is some kind of
malfeasance.
On their part.
Look, the Chinese are spying on
every day.
We're spying on them every day.
By the way,
they have cyber mechanisms at wo
They're all these
are the reasons to talk to them
that we need to.
I would like Tony Blinken
to confront the Chinese
about these very issues in perso
draw lines, get agreements,
get some kind of rules of the ro
set up.
What have we gain by not talking
Well, it's a postponement.
It still might happen, though.
Yeah, well, I hope it does.
And I hope it happens quickly.
There are a lot of urgent issues
that the United States
needs to deal with China on.
You know, as I said,
we're in a new world.
We're in a world
where we have a great power
that is not dependent on the U.S
for security like Japan
or Germany,
powerful country,
economically, a competitor.
We need to find
a way to have an adult relations
with this with with China.
So earlier
today on State of the Union, Rep
Senator Marco Rubio
said this brazen balloon inciden
was part of China's goal
of showing that it is a major po
Listen to his point of view
I think
the broader
relationship between the US and
to anyone who has any doubts abo
Now, the bottom line is here, an
we are now.
China has been for some time and
the primary strategic adversary
of the United States.
And we should be focused on it
because what they're trying to d
is create a world
in which they are
the most powerful nation
And the United States is a great
and decline that that is
that is what they believe to be
That is what they are working on
And we have to determine
whether we're going to allow the
to head in that direction. Or no
And Rubio Senator Rubio went on
and criticized
the Biden administration
for their lack of transparency
on the balloon in New Hampshire.
Republican Governor
Chris Sununu calling it
too little, too late.
The Republican chair of the Hous
Select Committee on China, Congr
Mike Gallagher, said the respons
I'm quoting now
makes us look weak and flat foot
So a whole lot of criticism, but
does this not
end up
also potentially
playing into the hands of the Ch
perhaps wanted to sow
divisions with all of this?
No.
What it really shows
you more is what happens
when the nation goes
into collective hysteria about s
Usually bad things happen.
I remember just this kind of con
around the time of the Iraq war
and when people said
when people
tried to point out that, you kno
we didn't have evidence
that there was actual nuclear we
it was all
casted as you were being somehow
you know, being a traitor.
Look, I agree with what
Senator Rubio is saying,
that China is
a powerful economic competitor,
a geopolitical competitor.
The United States should try to
this remains
the most powerful country in the
The way to do that,
by the way,
is to invest in America,
to invest in American jobs.
Precisely.
What the Biden administration is
to maintain strong alliances.
None of that requires this.
And by the way,
how come Marco Rubio didn't say
when these balloons were flying
during the Trump administration?
That seems something
know, the whole thing
seems very partizan and very pol
on an issue on which, frankly,
we should have the capacity
to be somewhat bipartisan.
This is just one more indication
of everything.
Even a balloon has become a fodd
for a kind of crazy
partizan warfare in
Washington these days.