China calls US claims ‘information warfare’

Beijing: China on Thursday said US accusations that a downed Chinese balloon was part of an extensive surveillance programme amount to “information warfare against China.”

The Pentagon on Wednesday said the Chinese balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast Saturday was part of a programme involving a number of such airships that China has been operating for “several years.”

At Thursday’s daily briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning repeated China’s insistence that the

large unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had accidentally blown off course and that the US had “overreacted” by shooting it down.