The Beijing government on Monday accused Washington of flying high-altitude balloons over China in the past year. But the United States denies it.
“It is common for American balloons to illegally enter the airspace of other countries,” said the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbinin a press conference in which he did not give more details or provide physical or photographic evidence.
The spokesman stressed that “since last year, high-altitude balloons from the United States have illegally flown over China’s airspace more than 10 times without the approval of Chinese authorities.”
The United States, Wang said, should “first reflect on itself and change the course of the narrative instead of smearing and instigating confrontation.”
This latest allegation comes days after the United States shot down a “Chinese balloon” that had crossed from Alaska to South Carolina, sparking a new crisis in relations between the world’s two largest economies. Beijing has insisted it was a weather artifact gone off course. Washington speaks of espionage activities.
Since then at least six Chinese telecommunications companies have been sanctioned by the United States, further increasing bilateral tension.
The White House was very emphatic in its denials. In a strong statement this morning, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Adrienne Watson, considered Wang’s comments “an effort by Beijing” to control the damage.
“Any claim that the US government operates surveillance balloons over the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is false,” he stressed.
“China is the one with a high-altitude surveillance balloon program for intelligence gathering, and connected to the People’s Liberation Army, which has been used to violate the sovereignty of the United States and more than forty countries on five continents.” .
