NEW YORK, February 19. /TASS/. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Chinese State Councilor and Director of the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Office Wang Yi did not apologize for the incident involving a Chinese balloon in US airspace during their Saturday meeting.
"I don’t want to characterize what he said. I don’t think that would be appropriate, although I can tell you no, there was no apology," he told NBC in an interview, a fragment of which was aired on Sunday.
According to Blinken, he told Wang Yi that [US] sovereignty and international law were violated in the balloon incident. "I told him quite simply that was unacceptable and can never happen again," the US top diplomat pointed out.
The US Secretary of State noted that "we [the US] are, of course, not the only ones receiving these surveillance ballons". "More than 40 countries have had these ballons fly over them in recent years, and that’s been exposed to the world," he concluded.
Earlier, US authorities had detected a Chinese balloon over the mainland at an altitude well above standard parameters for commercial air travel. It posed no threat to people on the ground. On February 4, the balloon was shot down by a missile in US airspace. According to the Washington administration, China was using this vehicle to gather important intelligence. In connection with the incident, Blinken postponed his visit to China. US President Joe Biden said he did not think it was necessary to apologize for the fact that the US shot down a Chinese balloon.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry protested over Washington’s attacks and slander. Beijing explained that the Chinese weather probe was in US airspace due to force majeure.