News outlets owned by the Chinese Communist Party say President Biden has only managed to make the U.S. military look weaker by pitting fighter jets against a surveillance balloon and an unknown "object," and cast China as the responsible party in the relationship while blaming the U.S. for holding a "hysterical" position on China.
"The Joe Biden administration's handling of the Chinese balloon case last week was meant to showcase the United States' strategic strength amid fierce attacks by Republicans and the low approval ratings of U.S. official," said an op-ed that appeared in China Daily, the country’s largest news outlet. "But instead it has shown to the world how immature and irresponsible — indeed hysterical — the U.S. has been in dealing with the case."
That op-ed, which also appeared in the People’s Daily — another state-owned media source — said Biden’s unpopularity in the U.S. and pressure from Republicans to get tough on China is what prompted Biden to "overreact" to the balloon incident.
"The U.S. should have dealt with the balloon case in a calm and responsible way without letting it being hijacked by the bitter domestic partisan politics because a conflict between the two countries would spell disaster for the entire world," the op-ed said.
That op-ed appeared on the same day that the U.S. shot down a so-far unidentified object, which prompted Chinese hardline publication Global Times to accuse Biden of staging a "juvenile farce" in the skies in order to look tough on China.
"Less than a week after a U.S. fighter jet fired a missile and brought down a Chinese balloon, an utterly harmless civilian airship designed for meteorological use, the US shot down an unidentified object around Alaska on Friday at the order of President Joe Biden," an op-ed in that paper said. "Stuck in typical partisanship and ‘political correctness,’ orders from the White House are getting laughably juvenile."