I just like to briefly address the presence of the Chinese surveillance balloon in

U.S. aerospace.

I spoke this morning with Director of the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Office Wang Yi

to convey that in light of China's unacceptable action, I am postponing my plan travel

this weekend to China.

As you know, President Biden and President Xi agreed during their meetings in Bali

in November that I would travel Beijing to follow up on their discussions.

We've been working across the U.S. government to prepare for a substantive set of discussions

on issues that matter to the American people and to people around the world.

And we've been engaging for some time with our counterparts in Beijing to prepare for these

meetings.

Yesterday, the Department of Defense announced that we had detected and were tracking a high

altitude surveillance balloon that remains over the continental United States.

We continue to track and monitor the balloon closely.

We're confident this is a Chinese surveillance balloon.

Once we detected the balloon, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection

of sensitive information.

We communicated with the PRC government directly through multiple channels about this issue.

Members of my team consulted with our partners and other agencies and in Congress.

We also engaged our close allies and partners to inform them of the presence of the surveillance

balloon in our aerospace.

We concluded that conditions were not conducive for a constructive visit at this time.

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