China considers US decision to shoot down balloon an ‘overreaction’

The use of military force against a Chinese civilian drone that closed part of US airspace is an overreaction, the Chinese Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

“The United States used military force to attack our civilian drone in a clear overreaction,” says in a statement published on the department’s official account on the WeChat social network (quote from RIA Novosti).

The Defense Department also strongly protested the US actions and said that Beijing reserves the right to take further necessary action.

As before informed AP, the US military shot down a Chinese balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday. Prior to that, as noted, he flew over secret military installations in North America.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed “acute dissatisfaction” due to the destruction of a civilian balloon, the department reported on its website. “China is expressing strong dissatisfaction and protest over the use of force and the US attack on a civilian unmanned balloon,” the ministry said earlier. They also emphasized that the Chinese side, after verification, repeatedly notified Washington that the balloon “is intended for civilian use and entered the United States due to force majeure, which happened quite by accident.”

On Saturday, the US Federal Aviation Administration closed airspace in parts of North and South Carolina due to a Chinese balloon, ABCNews reported. US President Joe Biden, answering a journalist’s question about whether the authorities plan to shoot down a Chinese balloon, said that this would be “taken care of.”

On February 3, a Pentagon spokesman said that a Chinese balloon had been spotted in the sky over the United States. Then it was decided not to shoot down the aircraft because of the threat to the civilian population. Later, the PRC Foreign Ministry confirmed that the aircraft really belongs to China, but clarified that it was used for scientific research, and not for espionage. The foreign ministry of the country expressed regret about this, emphasizing that the balloon deviated from the set course due to the wind.

In connection with the incident, the planned visit to China by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was postponed. His visit to China would be “the wrong signal” after what happened, Bloomberg’s source said.