The Pentagon sought a phone call between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart on Saturday after the United States shot down the Chinese spy balloon, but the offer was turned down, officials said Tuesday.
“The lines between our armies are particularly important at times like this. Unfortunately, the People’s Republic of China has rejected our request. Our commitment to open lines of communication will continue,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.
An F-22 fighter jet shot down the 200-foot-tall Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday afternoon, about a week after it was detected over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
Initially, China was conciliatory on the balloon, saying on February 3 before it was shot down that “the Chinese side regrets the aircraft’s unintentional entry into US airspace due to force majeure.”
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After the spy plane was destroyed by a Sidewinder missile on Saturday, Chinese officials took a more aggressive stance.
“The United States should have properly handled such incidents in a calm and professional manner without involving the use of force, but they decided to do otherwise, which is a clear overreaction,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. , Mao Ning.
“The aircraft does not belong to the US. It belongs to China.”
US forces recover debris from the downed Chinese surveillance balloon. (US Fleet Forces)
The balloon, which weighed 2,000 pounds and had a payload roughly the size of a jet plane, created a shallow water debris field about 1,500 meters by 1,500 meters.
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Navy and Coast Guard ships have been collecting and sorting the debris before sending it to a fbi processing lab in Quantico, Virginia, for analysis.
The Chinese embassy in the United States did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
