BEIJING— China confirmed that it was the source of a balloon detected flying over Latin America, describing it in similar terms to the suspected surveillance balloon that the U.S. shot down over the weekend.
Pentagon officials over the weekend said the second balloon was seen transiting across Central and South America, and characterized it as a fleet of surveillance balloons operated by China. That announcement followed the decision to shoot down another such balloon that had been flying over the U.S. on Saturday, which drew criticism from China.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Mao Ning
on Monday described the balloon over Latin America as an unmanned airship for research purposes that had been blown off course by bad weather—an explanation virtually identical to the one China gave for the balloon that flew over the U.S. Beijing has pledged to protect the rights of a Chinese company involved in the U.S. incident, although it hasn’t identified that company.
“This airship seriously strayed from its planned route, and accidentally entered the skies over Latin America and the Caribbean,” Ms. Mao said.
She said that the Latin America balloon was for civilian research purposes. A senior U.S. defense official said over the weekend that the Pentagon believed both the U.S. balloon and the one detected in Latin America were for surveillance purposes.
“These balloons are all part of a PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries,” the official said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
Ms. Mao didn’t disclose which countries the second balloon had transited.
On Saturday, the U.S. military shot down the Chinese balloon within territorial waters near the coast of South Carolina. The balloon had flown over a swath of the country in the days before it was taken out, including the state of Montana, which is home to many U.S. nuclear missile silos. The Pentagon has said the balloon traveled over several sensitive sites.
U.S. allegations that the balloons were for conducting surveillance far from China’s shores add to the concern in Washington and among U.S. allies about the growing global reach of China’s defense and espionage capabilities. U.S. officials have become increasingly public in calling out these alleged operations, leaving China scrambling to respond.
The incident also shows just how fragile U.S.-China relations have become. As recently as late last week, officials in both countries were busy preparing for a visit by Secretary of State
Antony Blinken.
During that trip, officials were expected to broach a number of the most sensitive issues between the countries, including the matter of Taiwan, in an effort to put a floor under relations. After several months of planning, that trip has now been postponed indefinitely.
Rather than the pomp that would have accompanied a visit to Beijing by Washington’s top diplomat, China instead disclosed Monday that its vice foreign minister lodged a rebuke to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing a day earlier over the U.S. shooting down the Chinese balloon.
Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng called the U.S. action an indiscriminate use of force that would further damage U.S.-China relations.
“The U.S. side obviously overreacted and seriously violated the spirit of international law and international practice,” Mr. Xie said, according to a statement.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng said the U.S. overreacted and ‘seriously violated the spirit of international law.’
Photo:
philip fong/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The statement blamed Washington for damaging efforts to stabilize relations since President Biden and his Chinese counterpart,
Xi Jinping,
met on the Indonesian resort island of Bali in November. Mr. Xie urged U.S. officials not to further escalate tensions, saying China would defend its interests. Mr. Xie is expected to be named China’s new ambassador to the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing didn’t respond to a request for comment. The message delivered by Mr. Xie to the embassy echoed earlier statements over the weekend by China’s Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry.
Even so, some Chinese officials have said Beijing is unlikely to react too strongly to the U.S. decision to shoot down the balloon because it seeks to maintain dialogue with the U.S. Emerging from three years of relative diplomatic isolation during the pandemic, China is focused primarily on jump-starting its struggling economy. As a result, many Chinese foreign-policy observers say it needs stable international relations, especially with the U.S.
Write to Brian Spegele at Brian.Spegele@wsj.com
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