The downed balloon was discussed by Blinken and a senior Chinese diplomat

On the sidelines of the Security Conference, the head of the American diplomacy met with Wang Yi, the most senior Chinese foreign policy official.

Antony Blinken, the head of the American diplomacy, met with Chinese Wang Yi, director of the Chinese Communist Party’s central foreign affairs office and thus the country’s highest foreign policy official, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday evening. According to a State Department spokesperson, the rare interview came as relations between the US and China are strained following the US military’s shooting down of a Chinese balloon.

This week, US President Joe Biden signalled his willingness to defuse tensions between the two arch-rivals, even saying he was willing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping despite the ball incident, which has rekindled tensions between Washington and Beijing. As well as Beijing.

A “frank and white” exchange.

The meeting, which took place in the media’s privacy on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany, lasted about an hour, and the exchange was “frank and white,” according to a senior State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Antony Blinken insisted to his counterpart that the Chinese balloon incident, which flew over American territory for several days before being shot down, was an “irresponsible” act that should never happen again.

The balloon incident forced Antony Blinken to cancel a rare trip to Beijing planned for early February, reigniting tensions between the two major rival powers. “The Secretary of State made it clear to him that the United States will not tolerate any violation of its sovereignty,” the State Department spokesperson continued.

According to the New China news agency, Wang Yi assured his American counterpart after the meeting that the American reaction had harmed bilateral relations. WangYi “clearly expressed China’s solemn position on the alleged aircraft incident” and “urged the US side to change course, recognize, and repair the damage its excessive use of force has caused to China-US relations,” according to the Associated Press.

The heinous charge was levelled against Washington.

Earlier Saturday, the head of Chinese diplomacy delivered a violent charge against Washington, denouncing its reaction as “hysterical» when flying over a balloon and its «protectionism” economic. Wang Yi drafted an indictment against the United States in front of an audience of international leaders and experts.

The first target was the American reaction, which was deemed absurd and hysterical in response to a Chinese balloon flying over American territory. This aircraft, a spy balloon, according to Washington, and a civil object, according to Beijing, was shot down by a US Air Force plane on February 4.

There are numerous balloons from various countries in the sky. Do you intend to eliminate all of them? It doesn’t demonstrate America’s strength,” tribune Wang Yi exclaimed. For this senior diplomat, this is 100% abuse of the use of force”. The head of the diplomacy reiterated that it was a simple weather research balloon that had inadvertently drifted into American airspace.

Intrusion

We urge the United States not to engage in such ridiculous behaviour to divert attention away from its domestic problems., a mis en garde Wang Yi. «We have requested that the United States handle this situation calmly and professionally,” he said. “Unfortunately, the United States ignores these facts and uses cutting-edge fighter jets to shoot down a balloon with their missiles, which is absurd and hysterical in my opinion,” Wang Yi said.

The Chinese diplomat then met with Yoshimasa Hayashi, Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. “I said that if a balloon enters our country’s airspace without authorization, it will be considered an intrusion, regardless of the country from which it originated,” the Japanese minister declared at the end of the meeting.
Wang Yi presented his country as a champion of “peace,” a word he repeated about thirty times, and emphasized that Moscow and Kyiv should “sit around the table and find” an issue “policy to conflict over. The American vice president, Kamala Harris, who was also in Munich, questioned China’s neutrality.

Kamala Harris has condemned the possibility of future lethal support for Russia.

The US is “concerned by the fact that Beijing has deepened its relations with Moscow since the outbreak of the war,” she said. “Any move by China to provide lethal support to Russia would only reward aggression, continue killings, and undermine a rules-based order,” the vice president warned.

The Europeans, particularly Germany and France, are still hoping to persuade China to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war. On Thursday, Paris estimated that “reconnection time with China, where French President Emmanuel Macron will soon visit,” had arrived.

However, there are numerous differences between Washington and Beijing, including trade imbalances, the situation in Hong Kong, American relations with Taiwan, human rights, and technological rivalry. Wang Yi continued his charge on this last point, criticizing American restrictions on the export of electronic chips.

These restrictions are “100%” protectionism. They are “100% selfish, 100% unilateral,” and “violate the principle of free trade,” according to the head of the Chinese diplomacy. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, also in Munich, urged Westerners on Saturday not to make the same mistake that Russia made in creating energy ties with Europe.