China reserves the right to any necessary reaction after the US military destruction of the Chinese balloon, which ended up in the US airspace, said the PRC, Bloomberg reports.
Beijing called Washington’s actions an “obvious excessive reaction” and a violation of existing international practices. The Chinese Foreign Ministry claims that the balloon was intended for civilian purposes and got into the airspace of the United States by chance, which the American authorities were notified.
“China expresses a sharp discontent and protest against the use of the United States to attack civil unmanned airships,” the department said.
The Chinese balloon was noticed in early February over the state of Montana, where the US Air Force base is located and the mines of nuclear missiles. He flew at an altitude of about 60 thousand feet (about 18 km) and was the size of three school buses.
The American fighters who flew later over North Carolina shot down on February 4 over the Atlantic Ocean, a couple of tens of kilometers from the coast. President Biden explained that he had ordered the balloon to bring down on February 1, but the Pentagon conducted the operation later to wait until the device reaches a safe zone.
Pentagon’s chief Lloyd Austin stated that China used a balloon to monitor strategic objects in the United States, CNN reported. Beijing assured that the device was used for meteorological purposes. Against this background of this, the Secretary of State Blinken canceled the planned visit to China.