Blinken calls China flying spy balloon over US 'irresponsible'
  • last year
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken calls it "irresponsible" of China to send a surveillance balloon into US airspace after he scrapped a planned visit to Beijing over the issue. Moments before Blinken's decision to cancel his trip, China issued a rare statement of regret over the balloon - which it insists was a civilian airship for "mainly meteorological purposes" - and blamed winds for pushing it into US airspace. A second balloon was since spotted over Latin America.
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