he meeting was not publicized by Washington or Beijing ahead of the high-level talks on Wednesday and Thursday in the Austrian capital.

The errant path of the large Chinese spy balloon across Alaska and the continental United States may have been caused by unusual weather conditions that pulled it off course.

China said Wednesday it will take measures against U.S. entities related to the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the American East Coast. At a daily briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin gave no details and did not identify the targets of the measures. China says the balloon was a unmanned weather airship that was accidentally blown off course and accuses the U.S. of overreacting in bringing it down with a missile fired from an F-22 fighter jet.

The Chinese spy balloon was 200-feet tall, weighed thousands of pounds and its payload was the size of a jetliner, a top Pentagon official said Monday.

After an American fighter jet shot down the Chinese balloon that had floated across the United States, the reaction from Beijing — defensive, angered, yet hedging its options — illustrated the challenges facing China’s leader, Xi Jinping, as he tries to stabilize relations while giving little, if any, ground. Hours after the balloon was struck by a Sidewinder missile and crumpled into the waters off South Carolina, the Chinese Foreign Ministry declared its “strong discontent and protest” and dou

The downing of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was met by lawmakers with a mix of praise, criticism and concern.

Beijing warned of 'responses' to come after America shot down a Chinese spy balloon on Saturday that hovered over U.S. nuclear silos, with experts warning of salvage interference.

An F-22 Raptor out of Langley Air Force base took the balloon down with a single missile at 2.38pm, separating its surveillance payload and sending it plummeting towards the ocean off Myrtle Beach.