The head of the House select committee on China claimed on Sunday that it was not a ‘coincidence’ that Beijing sent a spy balloon over the US ahead of an official US state visit. 

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) said the device was meant for Xi Jinping to show President Joe Biden what he ‘can get away with’ during an appearance on WABC’s Cats Roundtable.

‘It wouldn’t surprise me if this whole thing were intended to send a message to us while our Secretary of State was visiting,’ he said.

American officials and residents alike have been on high alert ever since the suspected spy balloon traversed several states at a low enough altitude to be seen by the naked eye.

Since then, another unknown device was shot down over Alaska on Friday, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered an object downed over his airspace on Saturday. 

The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, U.S. February 4, 2023

Rep. Mike Gallagher, head of the House select committee on China, criticized the Pentagon’s message over the incident

China’s ‘spy balloon’ that unnerved millions of Americans across the country earlier this month is part of a larger global surveillance plot by Beijing ‘s authoritarian government, the Pentagon has said

It’s not clear yet whether those objects are related to the spy balloon show down over the Atlantic Ocean last Saturday.

Gallagher suggested Sunday morning that he did not believe China’s claims that it was just a weather balloon blown off course, claiming it’s ‘not a coincidence’ it was spotted over Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana earlier this month.

He added, ‘I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it was timed to coincide with [Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s] visit to China.’

Furor over the balloon, which came at a time of historically low relations between Beijing and Washington, forced Blinken to cancel his planned state visit meant for last week where he was expected to meet with President Xi.

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‘We don’t have proof of that yet, but that would be well within the Chinese Communist Party playbook of attempting to humiliate us on the world stage,’ Gallagher told host John Catsimatidis of his claim. 

‘The message is: “Look what we can get away with. And you won’t do anything about it. You’ll still come crawling back.”‘

The Pentagon said last week that the balloon had been part of a vast Chinese surveillance program, spanning as many as 40 countries across multiple continents.

The goal, Defense officials said, was to likely gather information on other nations’ military capabilities.

Gallagher said President Xi Jinping’s regime used the spy device to ‘humiliate’ President Joe Biden’s government on the world stage

What’s more, it’s apparently the second suspected Chinese spy balloon to cross US airspace during the Biden administration. 

Three had been detected from the Trump administration years – something the former president’s officials have denied.

‘If that’s true, that means they weren’t told, which is a separate problem – and a very big problem, in my opinion,’ Gallagher said on Sunday.

He also complained that the House intelligence committee is yet to get its own briefing on the incident, after classified House and Senate-wide updates were given last week.

‘It just seems like we were caught flat footed, you know, a lot of the messaging from the Pentagon hasn’t made sense,’ Gallagher said.

His fellow Republican lawmaker, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT), announced on Saturday night that he’d been briefed about something potentially interfering with airspace over his district.

The US military later indicated this was a false alarm, chalking it up to a ‘radar anomaly.’ Normal flight regulations resumed that night.