US will look at continuing the broader efforts to expose and address China’s larger surveillance activities that pose a threat to its security and that to its allies, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a press briefing.
Ned Price said that the US exploring taking action against Chinese entities linked to the People’s Liberation Army that supported the balloon’s incursion into US airspace. The statement of Price comes after the US last week shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon which hovered in its skies for a few days.
“We are always going to protect our interests, we did so in the tactical case of this balloon. We also said in the release that you mentioned we are exploring taking an action against PRC entities linked to the PLA that supported the balloon’s incursion into US airspace,” Ned Price said.
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“We will look at continuing these broader efforts to expose and to address PRC’s larger surveillance activities that pose a threat to our national security and that to our allies and partners as well,” he added.
Addressing a press briefing, Ned Price said that China acted “irresponsibly” by violating the US sovereignty, calling it a “profoundly irresponsible act.” He stated that China’s “irresponsible actions” were visible to the US and to the world. He said that US has been engaging with 40 nations regarding China’s balloon incident.
“China acted irresponsibly by violating our sovereignty. This was a profoundly irresponsible act in response to which we acted responsibly to protect our interests. This is not something that only the American people have been able to see in recent days,” Ned Price said.
“China’s irresponsible actions were visible to us but also to the world and China has a lot to answer for they are presumably getting questions from countries all over the world about the nature of this program about these violations of some 40 countries across five continents as we said earlier today,” he added.
Expressing his remarks on engaging with partners of the US on the issue, Ned Price said, “We have engaged with them via the state department in Washington and our embassies around the world. This is a program that threatened and violated our sovereignty but the sovereignty of dozens of countries.”
He further said, “We think it’s important to share what it is that we know to hear questions and to answer questions from allies and partners around the world and to approach this challenge as we have many other challenges we face from the PRC with allies and partners by our side.”
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US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price did not reveal the names of countries that US has engaged with. He further said, “These countries are free to speak to what has happened to them should they choose to do so.”
Earlier on February 4, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin in a statement said that US fighter aircraft assigned to US Northern Command successfully shot down the high-altitude surveillance balloon belonging to China over the water off the coast of South Carolina in US airspace. He said that the balloon which was used by China in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental US was shot down above US territorial waters.
