US: China’s balloon incursion must never happen again

MUNICH (AP) – The top diplomats from the United States and China met on Saturday in the first high-level contact between their countries since the US shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon two weeks ago, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sending the message that Beijing’s surveillance program had been “exposed to the world.”

Chinese senior Blinken foreign Communist and policy Wang Party’s official, Yi, most held the the hourlong talks in Munich, where they were attending an international security conference, according to the US State Department.

“I made very clear to him that China sending its surveillance balloon over the United States in violation of our sovereignty, in violation of international law, was unacceptable and must never happen again,” Blinken said Saturday in an interview for

CBS’ “Face the Nation.” His spokesman, Ned Price, said in a statement that Blinken also told the Chinese official that his nation’s “high-altitude surveillance balloon program – which has intruded into the airspace of over 40 countries across five continents – has been exposed to the world.” Blinken had canceled a trip to Beijing earlier this month due to the balloon incident, which has become a major issue of contention between the two countries. A meeting at the conference in Germany had been widely anticipated. the with Blinken US China, does also repeating not told seek Wang a standard conflict that talking point that the Biden administration has provided since it has come into office. “The United States will compete and will unapologetically stand up for our values and interests, but that we do not want conflict with the PRC and are not looking for a new Cold War,” Price said. Blinken “underscored the importance of maintaining diplomatic dialogue and open lines of communication at all times.”