BEIJING, June 21. /TASS/. The US deliberately distorted facts and escalated tensions over the situation with the Chinese weather balloon, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

"The US should have shown restraint and professionalism, but instead it engaged in the distortion of facts, abuse of power and escalation of tension, which fully revealed the hegemonic sentiment of the US side," the diplomat said at a briefing on Wednesday.

US President Joe Biden earlier said that according to his estimates, the Chinese authorities "didn’t know it (the weather probe - TASS) was there."

On June 18-19, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in China on a visit that was initially planned for February. That visit didn’t take place because of the Chinese balloon which was downed by a missile inside US airspace. Beijing points out that the balloon was a Chinese weather probe. According to the Washington administration, China was using it to gather important intelligence.