China urges restraint as US military searches for balloon remnants

BEIJING – Beijing on Monday urged Washington to show restraint as the United States military searched for remnants of what

it believes was a Chinese surveillance balloon

it shot down over the Atlantic but which China says was a civilian craft that had accidentally drifted astray.

The balloon drama has further strained tense relations, prompting Washington to cancel a planned visit over the weekend to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

A US fighter jet shot down the balloon off South Carolina on Saturday, after the military had tracked its path across the continental US, a response that China described as an “obvious overreaction”.

China has repeatedly said the balloon was intended for scientific purposes and had blown off course.

“China firmly opposes and strongly protests against this,” Vice-Foreign Minister Xie Feng said in remarks to the US embassy in Beijing posted on the ministry’s website.

General Glen VanHerck, commander of the North American Aerospace Defence Command and US Northern Command, said on Sunday that the US navy was working to recover the balloon and its payload and that the coast guard was providing security for the operation.

A successful recovery could give the US insight into China’s spying capabilities, though American officials have downplayed the balloon’s impact on national security.

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said China had found out that its balloon had drifted over the US after being notified by it.

“The unintended entry of this airship (into US territory) is entirely an isolated, accidental incident. It tests the sincerity the US has in improving and stabilising bilateral relations and the way it handles crisis,” she said.

“We hope the US will work with China to properly handle our differences, avoid miscalculation and misunderstanding and harming our mutual trust,” she added.

Ms Mao also said that another balloon, spotted over Latin America, was an unmanned civilian airship on a test flight that “severely deviated and unintendedly entered the space above Latin America because it was affected by the weather and because it has limited self-steering capability”.

On Sunday, Colombia’s military reported that it had sighted an airborne object similar to a balloon after the Pentagon said on Friday that another Chinese balloon was flying over Latin America.

Sensitive time

The balloon incident comes as Washington and Beijing have sought to bolster communications and begin to mend ties that had been under severe strain in recent years over tensions on several fronts, including American efforts to block Chinese access to key cutting-edge technologies.

China has warned of “serious repercussions” and said it will use the necessary means to deal with “similar situations”, without elaborating, although some analysts said they expect any response to be finely calibrated to prevent making bilateral ties even worse.

Brokerage ING said in a note on Monday that the incident could exacerbate the tech war and would have a negative near-term impact on the renminbi.

“Both sides will likely impose more export bans on technology in different industries. This is a new threat to supply chain disruption, although the risk of logistical disruption from Covid-19 restrictions has now disappeared,” it added.

“This new risk is more of a long-term risk than an imminent one,” ING said.

The renminbi rebounded on Monday after falling to a low of 6.8077 against the dollar in early trade, its weakest level in nearly a month. REUTERS