China urges restraint as U.S. military searches for balloon remnants
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[February 06, 2023]
By Yew Lun Tian and David Lawder
BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Beijing on Monday urged Washington to show
restraint as the U.S. 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 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 U.S. fighter jet shot down the balloon off South Carolina on Saturday
after the military had tracked its path across the continental United
States, a response 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 U.S. embassy in Beijing posted
on the ministry's website.
The U.S. Navy was working to recover the balloon and its payload and the
Coast Guard was providing security for the operation, General Glen
VanHerck, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and
U.S. Northern Command, said on Sunday.
A successful recovery could potentially give the United States insight
into China's spying capabilities, though U.S. officials have downplayed
the balloon's impact on national security.
On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China had
found out its balloon had drifted over the United States after being
notified by it.
"The unintended entry of this airship (into the U.S.) is entirely an
isolated, accidental incident. It tests the sincerity the U.S. has in
improving and stabilising bilateral relations and the way it handles
crisis," she said.
"We hope the U.S. will work with China to properly handle our
differences, avoid miscalculation and misunderstanding and harming our
mutual trust," she said.
Mao said 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".
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A jet flies by a suspected Chinese spy
balloon as it floats off the coast in Surfside Beach, South
Carolina, U.S. February 4, 2023. REUTERS/Randall Hill
On Sunday, Colombia's military said it 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 the United States and China 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 U.S. 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 Monday note that the incident could
exacerbate the "tech war" and would have a negative near-term impact
on China's yuan currency.
"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
restrictions has now disappeared," it said.
"This new risk is more of a long-term risk than an imminent one,"
ING said.
The yuan rebounded on Monday after falling to a low of 6.8077
against the dollar in early trade, its weakest level in nearly a
month.
(Reporting by David Lawder, Kanishka Singh, Gram Slattery and Andy
Sullivan in Washington and Yew Lun Tian, Bernard Orr and Tony Munroe
in Beijing; Editing by Michael Perry, Clarence Fernandez and Nick
Macfie)
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