WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — President Joe Biden said he was troubled that China declined to take a call from Pentagon officials over the alleged spy balloon that crossed the U.S.

“There should be a direct, open line of communications” between the two nations, Biden said in an interview with ABC News on Friday, when asked about the episode. The president added that it was important for “the two most powerful nations in the world to be able to resolve anything quickly so there is not a mistake made.”

Asked how he would resolve the issue with Beijing, Biden said, “We make it clear it’s necessary for that to occur, we can’t fix it.”

Biden’s remarks came against a backdrop of questions over the Chinese balloon that traversed the U.S. before being shot down by the U.S. off the Atlantic coast.

The U.S. says it was a spy balloon and has been studying wreckage recovered off South Carolina; China insisted the airship was only a weather balloon that blew off course.

Biden on Friday said it was irrelevant if China knew that the balloon would cross the U.S.

“It is almost not relevant once it was over the United States,” Biden said and repeated U.S. claims that the device was for surveillance. “That is what that balloon does, surveillance.”

But Biden acknowledged there was a chance that Chinese President Xi Jinping did not know the balloon was over the U.S.

“There is a possibility of that,” he said.

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