The diplomats met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference
Diplomats from the United States and China met for the first time since the U.S. military shot down a balloon that the Pentagon says was part of China’s massive surveillance program run by its military.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a meeting with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Blinken told him the violation of American airspace by a Chinese balloon can never happen again.
After traveling across the continental U.S. from coast to coast, the U.S. government shot down the Chinese spy balloon on Feb. 4 over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina.
According to Blinken, Wang did not apologise for the incident during their meeting.
Before their sit-down Wang accused the U.S. of violating international norms with behaviour that he characterised as ‘unbelievable’ and ‘almost hysterical’ by shooting down the balloon.
Blinken rebutted by saying that the U.S. did not overreact in shooting down the balloon and that there was no doubt it was attempting to engage in active surveillance.
“What I can tell you is this, what is what is clear is that once the balloon was over the United States and flying basically west to east, it attempted to surveil very sensitive military sites in some cases it loitered or returned to them as it progressed east,” Blinken said.
“There is no doubt in our minds at all that ‘a’ this was a surveillance balloon and ‘b’, it was attempting to engage in active surveillance,” he explained.
In the week following the take down of the Chinese spy balloon, the U.S. military also shot down three mysterious objects—one over northern Alaska, the Yukon and Lake Huran.
On Saturday, the U.S. announced that it has called off the recovery operation for the Chinese spy balloon and the search for the mysterious downed objects.
