China has accused the US of flying high-altitude balloons into its airspace more than 10 times in the past year, and has carried out hundreds of reconnaissance missions, as the aerial surveillance dispute between the two countries becomes less recent.
Beijing’s accusations come after the US shot down what it said was a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina this month and later destroyed three other objects, most recently over the weekend.
“It is very common that the US invades [into] other airspace,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Monday. “Just last year, more than 10 American high-altitude balloons illegally flew in China’s airspace without the permission of the relevant Chinese authorities.”
Wang said the US often sends “ships and planes to carry out reconnaissance” and accused Washington of 657 aircraft sorties last year and as many as 64 aircraft flights last month “over the South China Sea alone”.
He did not specify the number of surveillance missions launched in internationally recognized Chinese territory and the number of claims in the South China Sea, which are largely unrecognized under international law.
China also asserted that the balloons passing through US and Canadian airspace were conducting meteorological research. The balloon was shot down this month at the behest of President Joe Biden. The US said last week that the balloons had multiple antennas for intelligence gathering and were part of a wider surveillance fleet that sent balloons over more than 40 countries and five continents.
The other three unidentified objects the US dropped were in Lake Huron on Sunday, Canada’s Yukon on Saturday and Alaska on Friday. The US has not linked the country to any country, but the incident has heightened tensions in US-China relations, which have reached one of their lowest points since the restoration of diplomatic ties in 1979 between the two countries.
General Glen VanHerck, head of the North American Air Defense Command (Norad), said on Sunday that the US-Canadian military command had been tracking the latest object since the previous day, when it appeared to enter American airspace, before deciding to shoot it down. down.
Norad determined the object had flown near a sensitive military site in Montana.
A suspected Chinese spy balloon that crossed North America earlier this month also flew over a site in Montana where the US military stores nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles.
VanHerck said Norad classified the three targets shot in the past three days as “objects”, adding that they “would not classify them as balloons”. He added that the US and Canada are still investigating and have not determined the origin of the object.
“I will hesitate, and will urge you, not to link to a specific country. We do not know,” he said.
The US government was not immediately available to comment on China’s allegations.
China’s Wang did not elaborate on state media reports on Sunday that Beijing was preparing to shoot down an unidentified object flying off the coast of northeastern Shandong province.
As of Monday morning, Beijing had not identified what the object was or confirmed that it had gone down. The FT could not confirm further details about the object with the local government bureau.
Additional reporting by Ryan McMorrow in Beijing and James Politi and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington