China lodges representations with U.S. after unmanned airship shot down

BEIJING, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng on Sunday lodged solemn representations with the U.S. embassy in China over the U.S. use of force to attack China's civilian unmanned airship.

According to a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry on Monday, Xie stressed that the entry of the Chinese airship into U.S. airspace due to force majeure was totally unexpected and accidental, and that the ins and outs of what happened are crystal clear and clearly do not allow room for distortion or smearing.

However, the U.S. side has turned a deaf ear to all of this and overreacted by insisting on the abusive use of force towards the civilian airship that was on route to leave U.S. airspace, Xie said. This act has seriously violated the spirit of international law and international practice, he said.

"What the United States has done severely impacted and undermined the efforts and progress made by the two sides to stabilize China-U.S. relations since the two countries' leaders met in Bali, Indonesia," Xie said.

He said China firmly opposes and strongly protests against this, urging the U.S. side not to take further actions to harm China's interests and not to upgrade or expand tensions between the countries.

"The Chinese government is closely following the development of the situation, and will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese company concerned and safeguard China's interests and dignity, and reserves the right to further react in response to this matter, if necessary," Xie said.