The balloon incident has heightened tensions between China and the US

Beijing:

Beijing rejected a request for a safe name between Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and his counterpart on the day an American warplane shot down a suspected Chinese language surveillance balloon, a US Division of Protection spokesman mentioned Tuesday.

“On Saturday, 4 February, instantly after taking motion to down the PRC balloon, the DOD submitted a request for a safe name between Secretary Austin and PRC Minister of Nationwide Protection Wei Fenghe,” Brigadier Basic Pat Ryder mentioned in a press release, referring to the Folks’s Republic of China.

“Sadly, the PRC has declined our request. Our dedication to open traces of communication will proceed,” Ryder added.

China says the balloon was an errant climate commentary plane with no army function, however Washington has described it as a classy high-altitude spying car.

After slowly traversing the center of america, reportedly over a number of high secret army websites, the balloon headed out over the east coast, the place a fighter airplane shot down it down on Saturday.

Austin and Wei met in Cambodia final November as Washington and Beijing sought to decrease the temperature after a go to by then-speaker of the Home Nancy Pelosi that enraged China.

However the balloon incident has heightened tensions, and led US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to scrap a uncommon journey to Beijing.

On Monday, President Joe Biden defended the choice to attend till the balloon had crossed the nation to down it, saying the Protection Division concluded that it was finest to take action over water.

Nationwide Safety Council spokesman John Kirby mentioned the identical day that measures have been taken to make sure the balloon’s devices have been “mitigated” of their potential to spy throughout the flyover, whereas “on the identical time growing and enhancing our potential to gather intelligence and knowledge from it.”

Basic Glen VanHerck, head of the US Northern Command, mentioned a naval ship would map the particles subject left by the balloon, which is anticipated to measure about 1,500 by 1,500 meters (yards) within the Atlantic.

The balloon itself was as much as 200 toes (60 meters) tall and carried a payload weighing a number of thousand kilos that was roughly the scale of a regional jet plane, he mentioned.

VanHerck mentioned the balloon particles could be rigorously studied.

“I do not know the place the particles goes to go for a last evaluation, however I’ll let you know that actually the intel neighborhood together with the regulation enforcement neighborhood that works this below counterintelligence will take have a look at it,” he mentioned.

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