China Claims At Least 10 U.S. Balloons Have Flown Over Its Airspace

As the diplomatic row over a Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean escalates, China is now claiming that the United States has flown at least ten high-altitude balloons over its air space since 2022.

"It is nothing rare for U.S. balloons to illegally enter other countries' airspace," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said. "The U.S. should first reflect upon itself and change course instead of smearing other countries."

He did not provide any additional details to back up the claims.

He also lashed out at the U.S. for placing six Chinese companies linked to the spy balloon on the Entity List, which requires them to get government approval for U.S. technology.

"China is strongly dissatisfied with this and resolutely opposes it. We will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises and institutions," Wang said.

U.S. officials quickly pushed back against the accusations.

"Any claim that the U.S. government operates surveillance balloons over the PRC is false. It is China that has a high-altitude surveillance balloon program for intelligence collection that it has used to violate the sovereignty of the U.S. and over 40 countries across 5 continents," Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said, according to CNN.

"This is the latest example of China scrambling to do damage control. It has repeatedly and wrongly claimed the surveillance balloon it sent over the U.S. was a weather balloon and has failed to offer any credible explanations for its intrusion into our airspace, airspace of others," Watson added.