China Hits Back After Fuss: US has Already Sent More Than Ten Balloons Over China in a Year

Since January last year, the United States has sent more than 10 balloons into Chinese airspace. This is what the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs says after Washington has reported several times of unknown objects being shot from the sky in recent days.

About ten days ago, the first object, a giant Chinese balloon, was shot down over the coast of South Carolina.

According to the Americans, that balloon was a spy device, while the Chinese continued to insist that it was a drifted weather balloon.

The United States should “look in the mirror” and “change its practices,” a Chinese ministry spokesman said Monday. However, he added that China reserves the right to take appropriate actions in the future. “There is nothing rare about American balloons illegally entering another country’s airspace,” the spokesman said.

On Sunday, the Americans shot down the fourth object, above the US and Canada, in more than a week. A senior government official in Washington said that the latter object did not pose a military threat.

On Monday, a senior Taiwanese official says in the Financial Times that dozens of Chinese military balloons have flown into Taiwanese airspace in recent years. “They come very often, the last one a few weeks ago,” said the anonymous source. Another source in Taiwan says such flights occurred on average once a month. So far, Taiwan’s defence ministry confirmed only one such incident a year ago. This involved a whole series of balloons.