BEIJING (AP) \u2014 China said Wednesday it will take measures against U.S. entities related to the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the American East Coast.<\/p>\n
At a daily briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin gave no details and did not identify the targets of the measures.<\/p>\n
China says the balloon was a unmanned weather airship that was accidentally blown off course and accuses the U.S. of overreacting in bringing it down with a missile fired from an F-22 fighter jet.<\/p>\n
Since the Feb. 4 downing of the balloon, the United States has sanctioned six Chinese entities it said are linked to Beijing\u2019s aerospace programs.<\/p>\n
The U.S. House of Representatives subsequently voted unanimously to condemn China for a \u201cbrazen violation\u201d of U.S. sovereignty and efforts to \u201cdeceive the international community through false claims about its intelligence collection campaigns.\u201d Secretary of State Antony Blinken also canceled a visit to Beijing that many hoped would stabilize ties that have cratered amid disputes over trade, human rights, Taiwan and China\u2019s claim to the South China Sea.<\/p>\n
While China denies the balloon was a military asset, it has yet to say what government department or company was responsible.<\/p>\n
After initially expressing regret over the balloon\u2019s entry into U.S. airspace, China has returned spying accusations against Washington, alongside its threats of retaliation.<\/p>\n
\u201cChina firmly opposes this and will take countermeasures in accordance with the law against the relevant U.S. entities that undermine China\u2019s sovereignty and security,\u201d Wang said at Wednesday\u2019s briefing.<\/p>\n
China will \u201cresolutely safeguard national sovereignty and its legitimate rights and interests,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n
Also Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said the Chinese balloon\u2019s intrusion was part of a pattern of aggressive behavior by Beijing.<\/p>\n
Emanuel noted China\u2019s recent beaming of military-grade laser on a Philippine coast guard patrol vessel, the harassment of U.S. planes by Chinese jets and China\u2019s opening of illegal police stations in the U.S., Ireland and other countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe balloon to me is not an isolated incident,\u201d Emanuel said.<\/p>\n
If China wants to be a respected member of the international community, \u201cthen you act appropriately to certain basic premises. that is you don\u2019t open police stations in other countries ignorant of their laws as if your laws don\u2019t have any boundaries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not exactly the qualities and characteristics of the good neighbor policy,\u201d the ambassador said, referring to China\u2019s outreach to countries in the Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Japan\u2019s Defense Ministry said at least three flying objects spotted in Japanese airspace since 2019 were strongly believed to have been Chinese spy balloons. It said it has protested and requested explanations from Beijing.<\/p>\n
Senior lawmakers in Japan\u2019s governing party on Wednesday said they were considering expanding the Self Defense Force law to also include violations of Japanese airspace by foreign balloons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING (AP) \u2014 China said Wednesday it will take measures against U.S. entities related to the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the American East Coast. At a daily briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin gave no details and did not identify the targets of the measures. China says the balloon was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-211069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}