China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said on Saturday (Feb 18) that the US handling of the balloon incident had been “unimaginable” as well as a “hysterical and absurd” act that violated international norms.
“There are many balloons from many countries in the sky. Do you want to down each and every one of them?” Wang, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said at the Munich Security Conference.
“We urge the United States not to do such preposterous things simply to divert attention from its own domestic problems.”
A suspected Chinese surveillance balloon, which Beijing denies was a government spy vessel, spent a week flying over the United States and Canada before being shot down off the Atlantic Coast earlier this month on US President Joe Biden’s orders.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has weighed meeting with Wang on the sidelines of the Munich conference, but there has been no confirmed meeting as of early Saturday.
Blinken is set to depart Munich on Sunday.