China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has accused the United States of “unbelievable” and “hysterical” behaviour for using a missile to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon. The incident has become a source of tension between the two countries, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelling a rare visit to China in response.
Wang Yi made his comments at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, where he said the US had a “misguided” perception of Beijing. He accused Washington of trying to “smear” China while itself implementing policies that ran counter to its own paradigms such as free trade.
The balloon was spotted over a series of top secret nuclear weapons sites before being shot down off the east coast on February 4th. Beijing denies it uses spy balloons and says the craft was for weather research. It then accused Washington of sending its own espionage balloons over its territory, which the US has denied.
President Joe Biden has made it a priority to reset relations with Beijing, which he describes as Washington’s biggest competitor. However, tensions flared last year after Nancy Pelosi, then leader of the US House of Representatives, visited Taiwan – the self-governing democratic island claimed by Beijing.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exposed the dangers of Europe’s over-reliance on authoritarian regimes and should serve as a lesson as the continent orientates relations with Beijing. He cautioned that “we should not make the same mistake with China and other authoritarian regimes”.
Wang Yi urged the US not to “do such preposterous things simply to divert attention from its own domestic problems”. He said Washington had the wrong view of China as a serious geopolitical challenge and a threat to the US. He accused the US of “100 percent protectionism, 100 percent self-servingness, 100 percent unilateral action” in its own economic policies like the Chips Act.
The Foreign Minister said he hoped the US would take a “pragmatic and proactive attitude towards China and work together with China to return our bilateral ties to accept a track of sound development”. He said this would benefit both countries and the world as a whole.