Following the United States' decision to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon on Saturday (February 4), China has responded.
The Chinese airship had caused relations between Beijing and Washington to grow tense, causing US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to cancel a trip to the Chinese capital, which both nations had hoped would ameliorate US-China relations, per AP.
According to the outlet, the airship - dubbed a "spy balloon" - had traveled southeastward from Kansas to Missouri at 60,000 feet. It had been spotted earlier hovering over Montana, where Malmstrom Air Force Base (one of America's three nuclear missile silo fields) is located.
President Joe Biden told reporters this weekend that he had issued an order to remove the balloon on Wednesday (February 1), but had been advised by the Pentagon to wait until it was above open water to avoid the debris causing damage to civilians.
"We successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it," he stated, via Al Jazeera.
The 80-year-old President added: "On Wednesday when I was briefed on the balloon, I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down - on Wednesday - as soon as possible. They decided, without doing damage to anyone on the ground, they decided that the best time to do that was as it got over water."
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated that the airship had been used by China "in an attempt to surveil strategic sites" in the US. "Today's deliberate and lawful action demonstrates that President Biden and his national security team will always put the safety and security of the American people first," he continued, via The New York Post.
Following the military attack on the "spy balloon" China immediately responded, claiming that it was a "civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes" - rather than the spy device the US purported it to be.
It also said in a statement, obtained by The New York Times, that the US' decision to shoot down the airship "seriously violates international convention."
"In these circumstances, for the United States to insist on using armed force is clearly an excessive reaction that seriously violates international convention [...] China will resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of the enterprise involved, and retains the right to respond further," the statement continued.
Despite only being shot down this weekend, the Pentagon was reportedly aware of its existence ever since it drifted into US airspace. However, officials reportedly chose not to reveal this information given that Blinken had been set to travel to Beijing, The New York Post reports.
Though, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Saturday morning that the US had not announced a visit, saying (via AP): "In actuality, the US and China have never announced any visit. The US making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that."
