There are multiple angles to this story. One of them has to do with domestic politics and the White House’s efforts to look tough which David has already covered that this morning. There’s a separate but related story involving China’s reaction to this becoming such big news in the United States.

As Jazz pointed out here, China’s first statement on this was an admission that the balloon did belong to them along with a denial that the balloon was intended to spy on anyone. According to China this was just a weather research balloon that had, unfortunately, drifted off course. That statement was a lie. The Pentagon was quick to point out that the US was very confident the balloon was intended to spy on whatever it passed over, in this case a part of Montana where there are nuclear missile silos. In any case, the initial reaction from China was characterized by NPR as having a “soft tone.”

As soon as the balloon finished flying over land and entered an area above the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of South Carolina F-22s shot it down. And suddenly the tone of the Chinese response changed. China called it an “excessive reaction” and someone from the Chinese Defense Ministry said they retained “the right to respond further,” whatever that means.

Today, China seems to be continuing with its general belligerence and tone of outrage.

China on Monday accused the United States of “indiscriminate use of force” in shooting down a suspected spy balloon over the weekend, as the U.S. military searched for remnants off the Carolina coast…

The United States “obviously overreacted and seriously violated the spirit of international law and international practice,” Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng said in comments to the embassy posted on the Foreign Ministry website.

He said the U.S. action had “seriously impacted and damaged” efforts by both countries to stabilize relations since President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Indonesia in November, which paved the way for Blinken’s China visit. China reserves the right to take further action, Xie said.

I don’t claim to understand how face-saving works in China but obviously that’s what all of this is about. The balloon incident was not only a public embarrassment, it also caused the cancelation of Secretary of State Blinken’s trip to China. That meeting was was supposed to include a face to face meeting with President Xi Jinping, something which may have been added at the last minute as an inducement to the US not to cancel. But we canceled anyway making it look like our Secretary of State just hung up on their president.

Instead of taking responsibility for any of that, China is now trying to blame everything on our over reaction. Here’s how the People’s Daily is covering the story today:

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.

I guess we were just supposed to pretend they hadn’t sent a spy balloon over one of our military bases and also ignore the fact that they were lying about the whole thing. Honestly, their expectation that we would play along to stay on their good side is more insulting than the balloon itself. Also today, China admitted another balloon drifting over South America was theirs. This one wasn’t a weather balloon, they claim, though once again its trajectory was just an accident of the weather.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning confirmed that a balloon spotted over Latin America also belonged to China, saying it was on a flight test for civilian purposes, had limited steering capability and had unintentionally entered the airspace of countries in the region.

The story here is China’s belligerence. Even when caught red handed they can’t help but lie and try to blame the US for over-reacting. If they treat the US this way, you can imagine how they treat small countries who have no way to stand up to them.