ALBAWABA - China has accused United States of America of flying more than 10 balloons over Chinese airspace since Jan.2022 without obtaining permission from local authorities.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that U.S. should blame itself instead of blaming and slandering China. He, however, did not reveal what did the American balloons aimed for.
His allegations were issued after the Pentagon announced lately that Washington had contacted Beijing about the Chinese balloon, which is still suspected of being for espionage purposes.
China accuses U.S. of flying more than 10 high-altitude balloons in its airspace during past year https://t.co/tPCv7zWg5s
— The Globe and Mail (@globeandmail) February 13, 2023
Pentagon's requests for dialogue had been rejected for several days.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had previously asked to speak with his Chinese counterpart, but he did not receive any response. China said it refused to contact Austin because of Washington's severely irresponsible and wrong decision to shoot down the balloon.
Beijing still denies to this day that its balloon is for espionage purposes, saying it is intended for civil research on the weather.
At the same time, Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command, said that he does not rule out that the unknown objects downed by his country, in the past few days, were from outside the Earth, leaving it to the intelligence community to uncover the truth of it.
It is noteworthy that on Sunday, U.S. fighter jets shot down the fourth suspicious object detected in U.S. airspace in just over a week.
Most notable of which was a Chinese reconnaissance balloon flying at high altitude over the Atlantic off the coast of South Carolina, before it was shot down by a U.S. Northern Command fighter on Feb.4, at the direction of American President Joe Biden.
