China Says Will ‘Safeguard Interests’ Over Balloon Shootdown

BEIJING (AP) — China stated Tuesday it would “resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests” over the capturing down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon by the United States, as relations between the 2 international locations deteriorate additional.

The balloon prompted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a highly-anticipated go to to Beijing this week that had supplied slight hopes for an enchancment in relations.

China claims it was a civilian balloon used for meteorological analysis however has refused to say to which authorities division or firm it belongs.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Tuesday reiterated that the “unmanned airship” posed no menace and entered U.S. airspace by accident.

Mao once more criticized the U.S. for overreacting relatively than adopting a “calm, professional” method, and for utilizing pressure in bringing the balloon down Saturday within the Atlantic Ocean simply off the U.S. coast.

Asked if China needed the particles returned, she solely reasserted that the balloon “belongs to China.”

“The balloon does not belong to the U.S. The Chinese government will continue to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Mao stated at a each day briefing with out giving additional particulars.

Beijing’s angle has hardened significantly following a surprisingly gentle preliminary response on Friday, through which it described the balloon’s presence as an accident and expressed “regret” for the balloon having entered the U.S.

Subsequent statements have grown firmer, in the identical tone used to confront the U.S. over points from Taiwan to commerce, know-how restrictions and China’s declare to the South China Sea. China says it lodged a proper grievance with the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, accusing Washington of getting “obviously overreacted and seriously violated the spirit of international law and international practice.”

Recent developments have laid naked the extraordinarily fragile nature of what many had hoped might be a manageable financial, political and army rivalry.

U.S.-China tensions have stirred deep concern in Washington and amongst a lot of its allies. They fear that outright battle may have a powerful destructive impression on the worldwide financial system, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine final yr, on which China has largely sided with Moscow.

Balloons both suspected of or confirmed to be Chinese have been noticed over international locations from Japan to Costa Rica. Taiwanese media have reported that mysterious white balloons had been noticed over the island a minimum of thrice up to now two years.

That’s particularly regarding as a result of China claims Taiwan as its personal territory to be introduced beneath its management by pressure if needed and routinely sends warships and army plane into the island’s air protection identification zone and throughout the center line of the Taiwan Strait dividing the perimeters.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has by no means explicitly linked the balloons to China. However, the latest furor over the Chinese balloon within the U.S. introduced consideration again to those mysterious sightings.

The measurement of the Chinese balloon within the U.S., in addition to the tools hooked up to it, had all drawn intense hypothesis as to its goal. Along with Washington, most safety specialists dismissed Beijing’s assertions that the balloon was supposed for meteorological relatively than spying functions.

But it doesn’t appear like any climate balloon that Cheng Ming-dian, head of Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau, has seen.

“In the meteorology world, I haven’t found a person who has seen or heard of a weather balloon that looks like this,” Cheng stated.

While China has in latest months moderated the abrasive tone of its diplomacy, it’s “still pursuing those broader, long-term strategic agendas on the economic, tech and security fronts,” stated Collin Koh Swee Lean analysis fellow on the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

“In other words, if you cast the change in rhetoric aside, we’re in fact not seeing any real meaningful improvement in the extant China-U.S. relations, which will continue to be dominated by rivalry,” Koh stated. “And the latest spy balloon incident only looks set to broaden the schism.”

Associated Press reporter Huizhong Wu contributed to this report from Taipei, Taiwan.