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China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao: USA as "number one among the espionage and surveillance empires"
Photo: -- / dpa
The exchange of blows over a balloon shot down by the United States on its territory has been going on for days - presumably China wanted to spy with it.
Beijing is now saying that the ongoing allegations of espionage from Washington are "part of the information war that the United States is waging against China," according to Beijing Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.
The international community knows exactly who is really "the number one spy and surveillance empire," Mao said.
According to Beijing, the balloon was a civilian airship that accidentally entered US space due to force majeure.
"Although we have repeatedly made this clear, the US used force to shoot it down, which is irresponsible," Mao said.
According to experts, there are considerable doubts that it was actually just a balloon, for example for meteorological recordings.
Accordingly, neither flight duration nor flight length match an ordinary weather balloon.
The USA, which is currently continuing to argue the debris from the downed device, are also certain that it was not a civilian balloon.
"I can assure you that this was not for civilian purposes... We are 100 percent sure about that," said Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder.
Previous balloon overflights had not been immediately identified as Chinese.
The sharp comments from China follow after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday described the balloon as part of a comprehensive surveillance program by China.
"The United States was not the only target of this broad program that violated the sovereignty of countries on five continents," Blinken said.
Accordingly, the United States is exchanging information about the incident with dozens of countries.
Blinken did not provide any more specific information.
However, Beijing also commented on statements by the US Department of Defense, according to which China had rejected an offer of talks by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin after the shooting down.
The Chinese Ministry of Defense said the talks were rejected because the US side had not created an "appropriate atmosphere" for it.
fek/dpa/Reuters/AP