Nation critical of US probe over airship

Beijing seriously questions credibility of Washington's so-called investigation

China seriously questions the credibility of the ongoing US investigation into an unmanned Chinese civilian airship it shot down as well as a potential report that may follow.

The collection and analysis of the airship's debris has been conducted "behind closed doors" by the United States, which has not responded to China's request through the consular protection channel to keep it informed about the investigation's progress, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Friday.

"China cannot but seriously question the independence, openness and transparency of the so-called investigation," Wang said at a daily news conference.

After announcing it spotted the airship in its airspace, the US tracked it and shot it down off the coast of South Carolina earlier this month, before recovering its debris from the water for analysis.

China, which had explained repeatedly that the airship's entry into US airspace was an unintended and isolated incident caused by force majeure, strongly protested the downing of the airship by the US.

The US called the airship a "spy balloon" without any evidence and abused force, violating the Convention on International Civil Aviation and multiple basic principles of international law, Wang said.

"The US has already preconceived its position on the airship incident. The way it handles the incident has been entirely taken hostage by domestic politics and is designed to serve its strategy to contain and crack down on China," Wang said.

Noting that US President Joe Biden ordered the Pentagon to take down the balloon as early as Feb 1, Wang questioned "whether the so-called investigative report, too, has already been concocted".

The conclusions in the potential report "will most likely not go beyond the disinformation and unfounded allegations coming from the US", he said.

In another development, Wang dismissed US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns' social media post on Thursday in which he claimed that a report issued by Xinhua News Agency was "crude propaganda and unworthy of a great power".

The report, entitled "US Hegemony and Its Perils", shares facts about US hegemony, and Burns' post shows that "the US is not used to hearing the truth, is reluctant to face its own problems, and merely dismisses all criticism as propaganda", Wang said on Friday.

"What is truly unworthy of a great power is diplomacy based on 'might is right' and coercion," the spokesman said, calling on the US to respect other countries' sovereignty and territorial integrity and seek peaceful coexistence and winwin cooperation.