Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi said today that the US actions regarding the balloon incident were “incredible”, “hysterical” and “absurd” actions that violate 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.

The alleged Chinese reconnaissance balloon, which Beijing denies was a government spy ship, flew over the United States and Canada for a week before being shot down off the Atlantic coast on Feb. 4 on the orders of US President Joe Biden.

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.