China calls US House resolution ‘political manipulation’

BEIJING/ WASHINGTON: China on Friday dismissed a US House of Representatives resolution condemning China over a suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down above US waters as “purely political manipulation and hyping up.”

“China is strongly dissatisfied with this and firmly opposes it,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters at a daily briefing.

“The resolution by the US Congress was purely political manipulation and hyping up,” Mao said.

The resolution , which passed unanimously on Thursday, condemned China for a “brazen violation” of US sovereignty and efforts to “deceive the international community through false claims about its intelligence collection campaigns.”

Republicans have criticized Biden for not acting sooner to down the balloon, but both parties’ lawmakers came together on the vote, 419-0.

China insists the object was a civilian weather balloon that had been blown off course, but has not said who it belonged to or offered other details.

Meanwhile, China’s Defence Ministry said it refused a call from US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin following the downing of the balloon because the US had “not created the proper atmosphere” for dialogue and exchange.

The US action had “seriously violated international norms and set a pernicious precedent,” ministry spokesperson Tan Kefei was quoted as saying in a statement issued late Thursday.

“Given that this irresponsible and seriously wrong approach by the US did not create the proper atmosphere for dialogue and exchanges between the two militaries, China did not accept the US proposal for a phone call between the two defense ministers,” Tan said.

China, Tan added, “reserves the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations.”

The Foreign Ministry has also threatened a response to the downing of the balloon but has given no indication what that might be.

Maintaining communications

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, under fire from some lawmakers, said on Thursday he did not view a Chinese spy balloon that transited the United States before it was shot down in the Atlantic Ocean to have been a major security breach.

Biden, who has sought to maintain communications with China and not allow tensions with Beijing to get out of control, said in a Noticias Telemundo interview that he did not regret shooting down the balloon sooner.

“It’s not a major breach,” Biden said. “I mean, look, it’s totally it’s a violation of international law. It’s our airspace. And once it comes into our space, we can do what we want with it.”

He said US military officials were worried that by shooting it down over land, the balloon and its parts could drop into a populated area.

“This thing was gigantic. What happened if it came down and hit a school in a rural area? What happened if it came down? So I told them as soon as they could shoot it down, shoot it down.

They made a wise decision. They shot it down over water, they’re recovering most of the parts, and they’re good,” he said.

Biden on February 2 ordered the balloon shot down once it crossed into the northwestern United States, but acquiesced to the US military’s request to not act until it was over water.

The 200-foot-tall (61-meter) balloon, along with its undercarriage of electronic gadgetry, was shot down by a US fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina on February 4.

The US military has been recovering as many parts as possible.

Some Republicans and Democrats have complained that Biden should have had the balloon downed sooner. The high-altitude surveillance balloon was first detected over Alaska on January 28.