China today warned the United States that it would “bear all the consequences” if it escalated the standoff over a Chinese balloon shot down by the US military this month.

Beijing will “carry on to the end” if “the US continues to exploit this issue,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

On February 4, a US fighter jet shot down what Washington is calling a Chinese spy balloon that entered North American skies. Beijing claims it was a meteorological ship that got lost.

The US reaction to the balloon was hysterical

Yesterday, senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi said the US response to the balloon incident was “incredible”, “hysterical” and “absurd” in violation of international norms.

“There are so many balloons in the world that the United States is going to shoot them all down?” Wang, director of staff of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, told the Munich Security Conference.

For Wang, shooting down a balloon “constitutes 100% an abuse of force, a violation of accepted international practice, especially the Chicago Civil Aviation Treaty” of 1944.

We demand from the USA not to do such absurd things

“We urge the United States not to do such absurd things just to divert attention from its internal problems,” he added.

“We have asked the United States to handle this situation calmly and professionally,” he continued. “Unfortunately, the United States does not think about these facts and uses fighter jets to shoot down a balloon with their missiles, which, in my opinion, is absurd and hysterical.”

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is considering meeting Wanga on the sidelines of the Munich Conference, but there is no confirmation yet that such a meeting will take place.

Blinken is expected to leave Munich tomorrow, Sunday.

Source: APE-MPE, Reuters, AFP.