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Reuters
Reuters
Politics

China says unmanned airship over US was isolated, unexpected event

A U.S. Air Force U-2 pilot looks down at the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon as it hovers over the central continental United States on February 3, 2023 before later being shot down by the Air Force off the coast of South Carolina, in this photo released by the U.S. Air Force through the Defense Department on February 22, 2023. U.S. Air Force/Department of Defense/Handout via Reuters

China has made it clear that the unmanned civilian airship that flew over U.S. terriory was an unexpected and isolated event, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

"China rejects distortion and hyping up of this incident," spokesperson Mao Ning said at a press briefing when answering a question on the Pentagon saying that it could not confirm China collected real-time data from the balloon earlier this year.

(Reporting by Laurie Chen; Writing by Bernard Orr; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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