China slams US over response to balloon incursion

BEIJING (AP) — China’s parliament on Thursday accused U.S. lawmakers of trampling on the sovereignty of other nations after passing a measure condemning an alleged Chinese spy balloon’s incursion into U.S. airspace.

In its statement, China’s National People’s Congress Foreign Affairs Committee repeated Beijing’s argument that the balloon was a civilian unmanned weather research aircraft, a claim dismissed by Washington citing its flight path and equipment. monitoring.

Although China initially regretted the Feb. 4 incident, it has since toughened its rhetoric in yet another sign of deteriorating relations between the two nations in recent years.

The Foreign Office said Wednesday it would take action against US entities linked in any way to the destruction of the craft, but did not provide further details.

The resolution passed unanimously earlier in the U.S. House of Representatives “deliberately exaggerated the ‘Chinese threat,'” the People’s Assembly committee said in its statement.

It was “purely malicious exaggeration and political manipulation”, he added. “Some politicians in the US Congress have fanned the fire, fully exposing their sinister designs to oppose and contain China.”

“In fact, it is the United States that freely interferes in the internal affairs of other nations, violates their sovereignty, and exercises surveillance in other countries,” the statement said.

Various Chinese government departments have issued daily protests over the handling of the case, accusing Washington of overreacting and violating “the spirit of international law”. pieces of which were sent to the FBI for analysis.

The United States has also sanctioned six Chinese entities it says are linked to Beijing’s aerospace programs.