(CNSNews.com) – Beijing on Thursday blasted U.S. lawmakers for passing resolutions condemning the Chinese Communist Party over the spy balloon incursion, and called on Congress to “stop smearing China, and stop taking actions that may escalate the situation.”
“These resolutions do not reflect basic facts,” said foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin. “They are purely meant to score political points and dramatize the situation. China strongly disapproves of and firmly opposes them.”
Condemnation also came from China’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress, whose foreign affairs committee said in a statement U.S. lawmakers were escalating tensions after the U.S. government violated “basic norms in international relations” by shooting down the balloon.
“Some politicians in the U.S. Congress have dramatized the incident and fanned the flames, fully exposing their malicious intention to counter and contain China,” it said.
The U.S. Air Force shot down the large Chinese balloon off the South Carolina coastline on February 4, after it had traversed U.S. and Canadian airspace for a week, passing over some of America’s most sensitive defense facilities.
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved by unanimous consent two resolutions on the issue, one condemning “the Chinese Communist Party’s invasion of United States airspace to conduct surveillance,” the other calling China’s use of a surveillance balloon “a brazen violation of United States sovereignty.”
The House of Representatives unanimously passed a similar resolution last week, condemning the “brazen violation of United States sovereignty” and denouncing “the CCP’s efforts to deceive the international community through false claims about its intelligence collection campaigns.”
China claims the craft was a civilian balloon used for “mainly meteorological” research that had inadvertently blown off course.
The U.S. government has rejected those claims, and the Commerce Department a week ago designated six Chinese companies for supporting China’s aerospace programs, including airships and balloons used by the military “for intelligence and reconnaissance.”
In an apparent retaliatory move, China on Thursday added two major U.S. weapons manufacturers to its “unreliable entity list,” prohibiting them from engaging in any China-related business, denying entry to their senior management staff, and imposing fines.
Although the statement from China’s commerce ministry linked the measures against Lockheed Martin Corporation and Raytheon Missiles & Defense to previous arms sales to Taiwan, both companies happen to have been directly connected to the February 4 shootdown.
Lockheed Martin made the F-22 Raptor which shot down the balloon, and Raytheon manufactured the AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile that was used to do so.
The companies are also key players in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. As part of a $1.1 billion arms sale announced by the Biden administration last fall, Raytheon will upgrade and maintain Taiwan’s surveillance radar program, while the island democracy will get Sidewinder air-to-air missiles worth $85 million.
Taiwan is in line to get 66 Lockheed-built F-16 fighters, arriving in batches by 2026. Lockheed Martin has also long been involved in helping Taiwan develop indigenous fighter jets and frigates.
The sanctions announced against the two companies include fines amounting to twice the value of their respective arms sales to Taiwan since the “unreliable entity list” mechanism was created in 2020. The commerce ministry said the fines must be paid within 15 days, but did not say how China intends to enforce the measure.
In a statement reacting to the Chinese announcement, Lockheed Martin said that it works “closely with the U.S. government on any military sales to international customers.”
“Lockheed Martin closely adheres to United States government policy with regard to conducting business with foreign governments.”
Under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which has governed U.S. policy since the Carter administration cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognized Beijing, the U.S. is committed to provide Taiwan with defensive weaponry.
China, which claims the island as its own, is bitterly opposed to the sales and has previously targeted U.S. arms makers over them. After the $1.1 billion deal was announced last September, Beijing sanctioned the CEOs of both Raytheon and Boeing Defense (the deal included Boeing-made Harpoon anti-ship missiles).
Seven months earlier, it announced “countermeasures” against Raytheon and Lockheed Martin after the U.S. announced Patriot missile upgrades worth $100 million. The measures included visa and entry bans and authorization for asset freezes, and property seizures.