Taipei: As a result of a large Chinese balloon suspected of conducting surveillance on US military sites, China downplayed the cancellation of a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, claiming that neither side had formally announced any such plan.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Saturday that "in reality, the US and China have never announced any visit; the US making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that."
Blinken was scheduled to travel to Beijing on Sunday for talks aimed at easing tensions between the US and China. This was to be the first high-profile trip since the leaders of the two countries met in Indonesia last November. However, despite China's assertions to the contrary, the US abruptly cancelled the trip after the discovery of the enormous balloon.
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The Pentagon flatly rejected that, along with China's claims that the balloon had only rudimentary navigational capabilities and was not being used for surveillance.
Chinese internet comments that were posted without restriction echoed the official government line that the US was exaggerating the situation. Several users made light of the balloon. Some claimed that the US couldn't control the balloon because it had placed restrictions on the technology that China is allowed to purchase in order to weaken the Chinese tech industry.
Others referred to it as the "wandering balloon," making fun of the recently released Chinese science fiction movie "The Wandering Earth 2."
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Nationalist influencers jumped at the chance to use the news to mock the US, saying that the US could not even defend against a balloon. Still other people used the opportunity to mock the US defences. One wry comment read, "The US delays Blinken's visit to China due to the balloon incident."
Censorship was evident on the issue; by Saturday night, Weibo's "wandering balloon" hashtag was no longer searchable.
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"The US is exaggerating this as a threat to US national security from China. In truth, we have not taken any action to counter this kind of military threat. Can you say that it is insignificant in comparison to the US military threat that is typically directed at us? Their naval ships, submarines, and surveillance aircraft are all approaching our borders, said Chinese military expert Chen Haoyang of the Taihe Institute on Phoenix TV, one of the country's major national TV networks.