A high-ranking Chinese ambassador has demanded that the United States return the debris from the downed spy balloon over the weekend, claiming that failure to do so would be further evidence that the United States has been “dishonest” throughout the crisis.
“If a person finds something on the street and knows who the owner is, he should return it to the owner,” China’s ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, said in an interview with French television station LCI on Monday.
Lu accused the US administration of “exaggerating” this issue and reiterated the official Chinese position that the gadget was utilized for meteorological research and not for espionage.
Last week, Pentagon officials acknowledged that a mystery white balloon had been detected above key western regions. The bomb was shot down by U.S. fighter jets off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on February 4, and Navy personnel recovered pieces of it afterwards.
According to Lu, the United States is being “dishonest” in its tight relations with China due to its apparent hesitation to return the balloon debris to China.
“[These balloons] are very common,” he added, suggesting that “American spy balloons or balloons used for other purposes are not uncommon.”
When American spy balloons entered Chinese airspace, local officials “played it low-key and without fanfare,” according to Lu. He did not specify whether those aircraft were also shot down.
FOX reported that Lu’s remarks resembled those of Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, who stated on Tuesday that the balloon “does not belong to the United States, it belongs to China.”
Additionally, Mao’s most recent comments were made just one day after she publicly revealed China’s ownership of the second spy balloon detected above Latin America.
Mao stated that, like the American spy balloon, the Latin American version was a weather research instrument that “deviated significantly from its intended path.”
The ongoing issue about Chinese surveillance balloons occurs during a particularly tense time in U.S.-China relations. In view of the incident’s repercussions, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken postponed his trip to China scheduled for early this week. “…I think, candidly speaking, in this current environment, [the balloon] would have significantly narrowed the agenda that we would have been able to address,” a government official explained to reporters.
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