China expert Gordon Chang told Newsmax on Wednesday that he would give President Joe Biden a near failing grade for how Biden responded to the Chinese spy balloon during Tuesday's State of the Union address.
The U.S. military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast Saturday that had flwon over sensitive military sites across North America.
In Tuesday night's speech, Biden said: "As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did."
During an appearance on Wednesday's "John Bachman Now," Chang was asked to grade Biden's response on the balloon controversy.
"With regard to the balloon, that would be a D," Chang said. "The question is, When was the president notified of this balloon?
"President Biden said it was Wednesday or Tuesday. If it were Tuesday, that would have been the fourth day after it entered territorial U.S. air space, and that means the failure is going to be that of the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
"Some people say that the administration is not telling the truth in that the president knew front the get-go, and if that's, indeed, the case, then it certainly is a D-minus."
Chang said the Chinese accomplished what they sent out to do with the balloon by humiliating the U.S., showing that the U.S. is incapable of defending its own air space, and proving that China was free to survey the most sensitive sites in the U.S.
"I think D-minus is actually a pretty high grade when you start to put things in that light," Chang said.
Chang, who authored "The Great U.S.-China Tech War," said the Biden administration was wrong in having Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reach out to the Chinese to seek a phone conversation. The request was denied.
"The Chinese are masters at not talking. And then what they do is they create the ardent suitor phenomenon, that we then pursue them more and more because they won't talk to us," Chang said.
"We shouldn't be talking to them. We should be trying to scare them by not talking to them. Anyone who has ever raised a 3-year-old knows that you sometimes have to impose cost, and the Biden administration doesn't want to do that."
Chang added the Chinese "take great delight where we have our senior officials try to talk to their junior officials."
"The defense minister of China whom Lloyd Austin tried to call, is a junior official in the Chinese system," Chang said. "His [Austin's] comparable rank in China is actually Xi Jinping, chairman of the Chinese Military Commission."
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