Her Foreign Ministry Chinacondemned today the decision of the American government to shoot down the Chinese balloon that entered the airspace of the United States in the previous days, repeating that it did not serve military purposes. At the same time, he accused Washington of "excessive reaction and serious violation of international practices".
"China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and protest against the use of force by the United States," the statement issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, adding that it "reserves the right" to respond.
According to a senior US Pentagon official, the balloon was shot down about six nautical miles off the coast of USA. It was hit by an AIM-9X missile fired from an F-22 fighter jet and there was no collateral damage or danger to civilians, he added.
The Chinese balloon entered their airspace USA on January 28, crossed into Canadian airspace on the 30th of the month and re-entered American airspace the next day. The US military will seek to retrieve the balloon's payload. According to an official, the debris is diascorewithin a radius of 11 km.
In a statement, the American Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin emphasizes that this particular balloon was used by China in an attempt to monitor strategic US facilities.
Instead, Beijing claims that the balloon served "research purposes, mainly meteorological" and that it in no way constituted a military threat to the US. He had described his entry into US airspace as an "accident", attributing it to reasons of "force majeure". At the same time, he accused politicians and the media in the United States of taking advantage of the incident to smear China.
Source: ERT, AFP, Xinhua, Reuters