China\u2019s top diplomat Wang Yi on Saturday blasted the US reaction to what Washington has called a Chinese spy balloon as \u201chysterical and absurd\u201d, in uncharacteristically strong remarks against the top Western power.
\nAddressing a gathering of world leaders at the Munich Security Con\u00adf\u00aderence, Wang said President Joe Biden\u2019s administration has a \u201cmisguided\u201d perception of Beijing and accused the US of trying to \u201csmear\u201d the Asian giant while it itself was implementing policies that ran counter to its paradigms, such as free trade.
\n\u201cThere are many balloons from many countries in the sky. Do you want to down each and every one of them?\u201d Wang asked. \u201cWe urge the United States not to do such preposterous things simply to divert attention from its own domestic problems.\u201d
\nWashington has been in a state of alarm since a huge white balloon from China was spotted over a series of top secret nuclear weapons sites, before being shot down just off the east coast on Feb 4.
\nBeijing denies it uses spy balloons and says the craft was for weather research. Subsequently it accused Washington of sending its own espionage balloons over its territory, which the US has denied.
\nThe spat led US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to abruptly cancel a rare visit to China.
\nWith Blinken also in Munich, all eyes are on whether both sides succeed in setting up a meeting. But asked if he was planning a huddle with the US delegation, Wang reacted combatively.
\nWashington, he said, had the wrong view of China as a serious geopolitical challenge and a threat to the United States.
\n\u201cThis is a misguided perception of China and with this perception, the United States is using all of its means to smear and clamp down China, and is co-opting other countries to do the same,\u201d he said.
\nWang expressed the hope that the US instead of \u201c100 per cent protectionism, 100 per cent self-servingness, 100 per cent unilateral action\u201d in its own economic policies like the Chips Act, would \u201ctake a pragmatic and proactive attitude\u201d towards China and restore relations to a \u201ctrack of sound development\u201d.
\n\u2018Don\u2019t make same mistake\u2019
\nAfter four years of antagonistic relations with China under his predecessor Donald Trump, President Biden has made a priority of resetting relations with Beijing, which he describes as Washington\u2019s biggest competitor.
\nBut tensions flared last year after Nancy Pelosi, then leader of the US House of Representatives, visited Taiwan\u2014the self-governing democratic island claimed by Beijing.
\nThat project may be tested again soon, with a high-level Pentagon official arriving in Taiwan for a visit, according to an FT report on Friday.
\nRussia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine has also led Western powers to cast a wary eye on the relations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
\nAlso in Munich, US Vice President Kamala Harris underlined how the US was \u201ctroubled that Beijing has deepened its relationship with Moscow since the war began\u201d.
\nNato chief Jens Stoltenberg said, \u201cBeijing is watching closely to see the price Russia pays, or the reward it receives for its aggression.
\n\u201cWhat is happening in Europe today could happen in East Asia tomorrow,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China\u2019s top diplomat Wang Yi on Saturday blasted the US reaction to what Washington has called a Chinese spy balloon as \u201chysterical and absurd\u201d, in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4913,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}