Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, offered a blunt response to the Newsmax question of whether the Chinese government would honestly "care" about the notion of House Republicans and Democrats working together on a resolution to condemn China for last week's surveillance balloon incident.
"Probably not. I don't think they care. This balloon incident was a test of the Biden administration, and also a provocative act," McCaul said Tuesday, while appearing on "The Record with Greta Van Susteren."
McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, then added the Chinese "didn't seem to care about the canceled meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chairman Xi [Jinping]. It was a real shot across the bow."
In other words, McCaul feels the Chinese government might have enjoyed pushing President Joe Biden to the edge, in terms of gauging how far his administration would go — or won't go — to excuse acts of surveillance by a foreign "adversary."
Last week's balloon incident was "serious, in the sense that everybody will remember it," said McCaul. "The visual of a spy balloon flying at this low altitude — which you can surveil quite a bit — and going all the way across the United States.
"I've never seen a foreign adversary nation fly an aircraft this low to the ground. You could see it in the sky. It's really the talk of the American people," lamented McCaul, while adding that Chairman Xi might have made a "gross miscalculation" with the impact of this incident, which has now "galvanized" a large faction of U.S. citizens.
The Chinese "were testing this president," and Xi likely now believes Biden "failed that test by not shooting down the balloon earlier," said McCaul.
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