The United States’s high-altitude balloons have flown over China’s airspace without permission more than 10 times since the beginning of last year, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has claimed.
“It is not rare that US balloons illegally enter other countries’ airspaces,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry, said in a regular media briefing on Monday. “The first thing that the US should do is to look back at its past mistakes and correct them.”
He also criticized the US for operating the world’s largest spying network and intercepting online messages and phone calls globally.
His comments came after the Marine Development Bureau in eastern China’s Qingdao claimed to have seen an unidentified flying object near a Chinese naval base on Sunday. The bureau said it would shoot it down and called on fishermen to help collect the object if they found it.
Chinese writers speculated that the object flying near a Qingdao naval base could have been a US drone. They said it was reasonable for China to shoot it down as the US had done the same to a Chinese meteorological balloon.
Since US President Joe Biden ordered the takedown of an alleged Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, the US and Canada have deployed F-22 fighter jets to shoot down another three unidentified flying objects in Alaska on February 10, Yukon on Saturday and Lake Huron on Sunday.
US Senate majority leader Charles Schumer, who was briefed by the Biden administration, said the flying objects in Alaska and Yukon were likely balloons, which were smaller than the one downed in South Carolina.
US Air Force General Glen VanHerck said it was unclear how the latest three objects were staying aloft but he would not call the last flying object a balloon.
On Saturday, the US Commerce Department sanctioned six Chinese companies for the balloon incident.
They include Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology, China Electronics Technology Group Corp 48th Research Institute, Dongguan Lingkong Remote Sensing Technology, Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group, Guangzhou Tian-Hai-Xiang Aviation Technology and Shanxi Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group.
Wang said China had no information about the latest three objects, which were shot down by the US and Canada in the past three days. He accused the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) of having spied on politicians and diplomats in Germany, France, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands and intercepted the public’s online messages and phone calls.
“It is an overreaction that the US frequently took down unidentified flying objects with its advanced missiles,” Wang said. “Many people in the US are doubtful whether these actions, which wasted taxpayers’ money, can bring any good to them and the country.”
“The US knows clearly how many spy balloons it has released all around the world,” he said. “International society has seen very clearly which country is the world’s biggest spy.”
Wang said a sail drone was found in Namibian territorial waters in South Africa in early February while most local media believed that it was a US spying tool. The US embassy in Namibia said the US government was not responsible for the drone.
On Sunday, Qingdao’s Marine Development Bureau said it saw an unidentified flying object off the coast of Rizhao, Shandong province. It said it did not know what the object was and urged fishermen to beware of any falling objects.
ThePaper.cn said the object was flying near the Jianggezhuang Naval Base, which hosts both ballistic and nuclear attack submarines and the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N)carrier Liaoning. The base is also the command headquarters of China’s North Sea Fleet.
The Dalian Maritime Affairs Bureau said it would hold a military drill in the north of the Yellow Sea between February 11 and 19.
A Chinese writer said it was likely that the object was an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the US, rather than a balloon. He said the Yellow Sea had long been an espionage target of the US and Japan.
He said it was time for China to take countermeasures as the US had recently made a big fuss over the Chinese balloon issue. He said taking down the flying object would be a strong deterrent against the US and any other anti-China forces.
A Shandong-based columnist said the US’s unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles had been frequent intruders near China for a very long time. He said China had remained low profile whenever the US trespassed China’s airspace and water areas in the past.
However, he added that any objects flying into China’s airspace without permission would be now treated as an invasion and China would no longer tolerate it. He said China had all the reasons to take these objects down.
Read: China goes on the spy-balloon offensive
Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3