The US response to a Chinese language high-altitude balloon that floated throughout the nation, and the a lot hyped shootdown of three different unidentified flying objects, was “absurd and hysterical,” China’s highest ranked diplomat, Wang Yi, instructed the Munich Safety Convention on Saturday.

“It doesn’t present that America is powerful, quite the opposite it exhibits the alternative,” mentioned the previous international minister not too long ago promoted to direct the nation’s international coverage within the 24-member Politburo of the Chinese language Communist Get together.

The US launched a significant hunt for the UFOs after the February 4 downing of what it claimed to be a Chinese language surveillance craft despatched to spy on navy websites and different delicate areas. Beijing has repeatedly denied the allegations, insisting the balloon was a civilian climate system that had been blown off beam accidentally.

“Throughout the globe there are various balloons within the sky, from totally different nations. Do you need to down each one in all them?” Wang puzzled. Washington itself has flown high-altitude balloons over Chinese language airspace no less than 10 occasions since Could 2022, Beijing claimed final week.

The balloon incident deepened the diplomatic rift and derailed the US State Secretary’s uncommon go to to Beijing, however on Saturday, Antony Blinken confronted Wang on the sidelines of the Munich convention to make it “clear america won’t stand for any violation of our sovereignty.” He additionally lectured his Chinese language counterpart on the Ukraine battle, North Korean missile checks and Taiwan, in addition to Washington’s “values and pursuits,” in accordance to a short readout.

It was not instantly clear what Wang instructed Blinken in personal, however in a public speech he urged Washington to “rectify” its misguided method to China-US relations and cease making an attempt to “divert consideration from its home issues” by blowing such “preposterous issues” out of proportion.

The Chinese language diplomat didn’t specify the home issues the US ought to slightly deal with, however he had beforehand steered that Washington was making an attempt to deflect folks’s consideration from a poisonous prepare incident in Ohio, which occurred simply at some point earlier than the Pentagon despatched an F-22 fighter jet to destroy the airship after monitoring it idly for over per week.

Earlier this week, Wang additionally famous how US media headlines had been dominated by UFO encounters within the days after a bombshell report by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh a couple of covert US operation to explode Russian Nord Stream fuel pipelines.

The US has managed to get well the particles of the Chinese language balloon for additional examine, however the seek for the remaining three downed UFOs was known as off on Saturday, with no particles discovered. US officers admitted there have been no grounds to recommend they have been surveillance craft from China or some other nation, whereas a gaggle of hobbyists from Illinois reported one in all its small “pico” balloons “lacking in motion.”