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BEIJING. — China expressed strong dissatisfaction and opposition towards the US use of force to attack China’s civilian unmanned airship on Saturday, Chinese Foreign Ministry said yesterday in a statement.

The Chinese side has, after verification, repeatedly informed the US side of the civilian nature of the airship and conveyed that its entry into the United States due to force majeure was totally unexpected, the statement said, noting the Chinese side has clearly asked the US side to properly handle the matter in a calm, professional and restrained manner.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said last Friday when answering a relevant query that the civilian airship is used for research, mainly meteorological purposes.

Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course.

According to the statement, the spokesperson of the US Department of Defence also noted the balloon does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.

Under such circumstances, the US use of force is a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.

China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the company concerned, and reserve the right to make further responses if necessary, said the statement.

The US attack was a clear overreaction, said Tan Kefei, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defence, in a statement.

“We express solemn protest against the move by the US side and reserve the right to take necessary measures to deal with similar situations,” Tan said.

The reaction from China came after a US  military fighter jet shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, a week after it first entered US airspace and triggered a dramatic — and public — spying saga that worsened Sino-US relations.

President Joe Biden said he had issued an order last Wednesday to take down the balloon, but the Pentagon had recommended waiting until it could be done over open water to safeguard civilians from debris crashing to Earth from thousands of feet (metres) above commercial air traffic.

Multiple fighter and refuelling aircraft were involved in the mission, but only one — an F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia — took the shot at 2:39 p.m. (1939 GMT), using a single AIM-9X supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile, a senior US military official said.

China strongly condemned the military strike on an airship that it says was used for meteorological and other scientific purposes, and which it said had strayed into US airspace “completely accidentally” — claims flatly dismissed by US officials.

“China had clearly asked the US to handle this properly in a calm, professional and restrained manner,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “The US had insisted on using force, obviously overreacting.”

The balloon was shot down about six nautical miles off the US coast of the Atlantic Ocean, over relatively shallow water.

One US military official said the debris field was spread out over seven miles (11 km) of ocean, and multiple US military vessels were on site.

The downing of the balloon came shortly after the US government ordered a halt to flights in and out of three airports in South Carolina — Wilmington, Myrtle Beach and Charleston — due to what it said at the time was an undisclosed “national security effort.” Flights resumed on Saturday afternoon. — Xinhua/Reuters