NNA - President Joe Biden starkly warned he will protect America against Chinese threats to its sovereignty and singled out President Xi Jinping -- a striking escalation of a suspected spy balloon showdown during his State of the Union address.

Biden called out Beijing on Tuesday before millions of viewers in the US and around the world as diplomatic tensions with China soar and new details emerge of an expansive Chinese balloon surveillance program.

In the highly symbolic choreography of the US-Chinese relationship, Biden's statements were unusually direct and raise questions about how Beijing will respond, even if his tone spoke to a charged domestic political context as Republicans complain he was too slow to shoot down the balloon. --- CNN

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