China isn’t apologizing for sending a surveillance balloon across the United States.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted during an appearance with Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that his Chinese counterpart declined to apologize for the balloon in a meeting this week.
“No, there was no apology,” Blinken said of his meeting with Wang Yi, Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission.
Blinken emphasized his objections to the balloon in the interview — an insistence he made to Wang.
The two diplomats were present for the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
“I told him quite simply that that was unacceptable and can never happen again.”
China has denied that the balloon is a surveillance craft, instead describing it as a weather balloon that was blown off course, according to CNBC.
China’s foreign ministry expressed “regrets that the airship strayed into the United States due to force majeure,” declining to go so far as to apologize for the craft’s violation of U.S airspace.
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