the secretary of state Anthony Blinken met on Saturday with China’s top diplomat, wang yiin the first face-to-face meeting between senior US and Chinese officials since the US military shot down an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon earlier this month.
In a meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Blinken “spoken directly about the unacceptable violation of United States sovereignty and international law,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
The secretary, Price added, “made it clear that the United States will not tolerate any violation of our sovereignty” and said that incidents such as the surveillance balloon, which hovered over US airspace for days before the US shot it down off the South Carolina coast, “should never happen again.”
“I condemned the PRC surveillance balloon raid and stressed that it must not happen again. I warned China against supplying aid material to Russia and also stressed the importance of keeping open lines of communication,” Blinken noted.
The tension between China and the United States has skyrocketed after the US authorities shot down on February 4 a Chinese balloon that according to Washington is part of an espionage program and that, according to Beijing, had only meteorological purposes.
The United States subsequently shot down three other flying objects in its territory and that of Canadawhose origin is being investigated by the US and Canadian authorities, and which according to President Biden, do not appear to be similar to the “spy” balloon.
The discovery of that first balloon caused Blinken to suspend the trip he planned to make to Beijing in early February and postpone it until “the conditions” are right for it to take place.
Wang, in Munich, described this Saturday as an “absurd and hysterical reaction” the decision to shoot down that balloon and maintained that it was something “unacceptable.”
The Chinese representative reiterated that it was a civilian device and without the possibility of being directed at a distanceas well as that the fact of defeating it “does not show the strength of the United States”, but “on the contrary”.
The State Department spokesman, Ned Price, specified in a statement that Blinken told his interlocutor that “the United States will not allow any violation of its sovereignty” and that what happened is “irresponsible.”
Biden said Thursday in an appearance before the press in Washington that He was scheduled to discuss the “spy” balloon with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.but he announced that he was not going to apologize for shooting him down.
President Biden also warned that he will not hesitate to shoot down any flying object that poses a threat to the American people, while Blinken stressed today that the United States does not want “conflict” with China or seek “a new Cold War.”
It may interest you:
– US suspends search for Chinese spy balloon and 2 unidentified aerial objects
– Joe Biden warns that objects that represent a danger to the US will be shot down
– How balloons have been used for centuries for military espionage
Source: La Opinion
