China confirmed on Monday the Chinese origin of the balloon that currently flies over Latin America.
Washington presented the plane as a spy device. In Beijing, the authorities assure that it was a civilian machine that deviated from its trajectory. They disapproved of the use of a missile to shoot it down.
This balloon had aroused the discontent of the United States, which accused China of an “unacceptable violation” of its sovereignty. In particular, they postponed a planned trip to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Beijing says the ball was ‘lost’
This Monday, Chinese diplomacy confirmed that a second balloon, sighted in recent days over Latin America, came from China.
“It is civilian in nature and is used for flight tests,” Mao Ning, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, told a regular news conference.
“Due to weather and due to its maneuverability limitations, this balloon severely deviated from its intended route and drifted into the skies over Latin America and the Caribbean.”
A first shot down balloon
The US Defense Department said Friday it had seen a second “Chinese surveillance balloon,” this time over Latin America.
The Colombian Air Force then reported over the weekend that an object with “balloon characteristics” had been detected and “monitored” until it left national airspace.
The first balloon had spent several days hovering over North America before Washington announced Saturday that an F-22 fighter had shot it down off the coast of South Carolina.
General Glen VanHerck, commander of US forces in North America, said Sunday that the Navy was conducting “recovery operations, with the assistance of the US Coast Guard to secure the area and maintain public safety.” “.
A spy balloon according to Washington
The Pentagon says it was a spy balloon used by China “in an attempt to monitor strategic sites” in the United States.
Beijing maintains that the aircraft was intended for scientific research, particularly meteorology, having deviated from its trajectory.
On Monday, the Chinese government accused the United States of “seriously” damaging bilateral relations by shooting down the aircraft. The day before, a vice foreign minister, Xie Feng, warned that China “reserved the right” to retaliate.
The affair led to the last-minute postponement of a visit to Beijing by the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, last week. It would have been the first visit to China by a secretary of state since Mike Pompeo’s in 2018.
Source: BFM TV
