Beijing on Monday condemned Washington’s decision to shoot down a Chinese balloon that entered US airspace, accusing the US of dealing a “severe blow” to ties.
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Xie Feng lodged a formal protest with the US Embassy in Beijing, accusing the US of violating international law.
Xi said Washington’s “indiscriminate use of military force” against “civilian unmanned aerial vehicles” “gravely violated the spirit of international law and international conventions”.
Referring to US President Joe Biden’s summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in November, he said, “What the US has done is a serious blow to efforts and progress made to stabilize China-US relations since the Bali meeting.” Is.”
The rising rhetoric indicates that the balloon dispute is derailing efforts to stabilize relations between the two superpowers. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was due to travel to China over the weekend, called off his trip at short notice after Chinese balloons intruded into US airspace became public.
Some analysts say Beijing’s choice of rhetoric indicates the Chinese government may consider accusing Washington of illegal military force against an aircraft in distress under the Chicago Convention that regulates international civil aviation. The allegation that could spark controversy and raise concerns about possible retaliation.
All Chinese statements have used the term “civilian unmanned airship” to describe the balloon. Aurel Saari, an associate professor of public international law at the University of Exeter, wrote on Twitter that language “is the basis of a narrative that accuses the US of using force against a civilian airship in distress.”
Sari argued that although the requirement of states under the Chicago Convention to avoid the use of weapons against civilian aircraft in flight does not apply to the Chinese balloon case, “the language adopted by China may lead to confusion on this point”. .
Blinken said on Friday that it was clear that China had violated US sovereign airspace and international law.
The US military, which also uses high-altitude balloons but has no record of flying them into any other country’s airspace, concluded in an internal legal memo last year that such balloons were “contrary to international law.” State aircraft are subject to the same requirements under.” as other state planes ”. This includes requiring a foreign state’s permission before operating such balloons over its territory.
The memorandum, signed by legal experts from the US Indo-Pacific Command and the Australian military as advice for joint operations, also states that the same requirements apply to civilian unmanned free balloons “unless they are light balloons that are used exclusively for meteorological purposes and operated in the manner prescribed by the appropriate authority”.
A person familiar with the Biden administration’s thinking on the matter said that when Blinken called a Chinese diplomat on Wednesday to protest, the official had no explanation. The person said that China later provided an explanation to the US for diverting a civilian aircraft.
Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said China had “clearly violated” international law because it was a signatory to the Chicago Convention treaty that created the International Civil Aviation Organization under the United Nations.
“Its reconnaissance balloon entered US airspace without permission from the US government,” Singleton said. “Technically, balloons are considered aircraft and thus subject to the same requirements as aircraft.”
He added that the Chicago Convention “explicitly denies” foreign military aircraft the right to enter the airspace of another state without that government’s permission.
