“Should I stay or should I go?”

Blinken had been scheduled to meet with top officials in China Feb. 5-6 in a follow-up to President Joe Biden’s meeting with Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping in Bali in November, in which Biden pledged to “maintain open lines of communication” with Beijing at a time of worsening bilateral tensions.

But that was scuttled after the Pentagon announced Thursday that it had discovered a Chinese airship hovering over Montana, saying it had “very high confidence” the balloon had been sent to the U.S. to collect sensitive information.

The balloon’s intrusion constituted a “clear violation of our sovereignty” and prompted the State Department to indefinitely delay Blinken’s visit until “conditions are right,” a senior State Department official said in a press briefing.

Conditions will be right when Americans forget about the spy balloon (and these days that takes about 24 hours) and then Secretary of State Blinken can make the trip to focus on “partnering with China” in the fight against the weather by buying garbage Chinese ‘green’ technology and taxing Americans to pay for it.

If Blinken went, he’d have to confront Hunter Biden’s paymasters, which would be awkward and unconvincing. China would respond Wolf Warrior style, Blinken wouldn’t be able to ante up and Kerry would cry about how the world will end next Tuesday unless we buy more Communist slave labor solar panels.

So Blinken ducks China. And China learns once again that America blinks and then blinks harder. And then pretends nothing happened.

Cowardice in the face of the enemy.