Gallagher: Biden's Delayed Response To Chinese Spy Balloon 'Troubling' and 'Scandalous'

Republican House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin has called out President Joe Biden for his scandalous behavior around the Chinese spy balloon incident.

Gallagher called the report that Biden held back sanctions against China "troubling and scandalous."

"I think it’s incredibly troubling. Time and time again, we think that by being nice to China, they’re somehow going to moderate their behavior…so I thought it was pretty scandalous," Gallagher said.

"After the Chinese spy balloon traversed America skies in February, some U.S. officials were confident it would galvanize the 'U.S. bureaucracy' to push forward a prepared slate of actions against China, but instead, 'the U.S. State Department held back human rights-related sanctions, export controls and other sensitive actions to try to limit damage to the U.S.-China relationship,'" Reuters reported last week.

Rick Waters, deputy assistant secretary of State for China and Taiwan, who leads the Office of China Coordination policy division, said, "Guidance from Secretary of State is to push non-balloon actions to the right so we can focus on symmetric and calibrated response. We can revisit other actions in a few weeks."

"Gallagher also criticized the Biden administration for trying to 'downplay' the balloon incident and even hide its existence until local citizens saw it in the sky," reported Breitbart.

"It’s also become clear that they just did their best to downplay the balloon incident in general and were hoping that it would just traverse over the United States, nobody would notice and, you know, Blinken could keep his original travel plans to Beijing," Gallagher said.

Gallagher said it was a strategy that blew up "like a hot air balloon."

"They read it as weakness and their appetite grows," Gallagher said. "Very, very troubling — the triumph of delusion over experience."