As the United States successively shot down unidentified flying objects that appeared over North America, China is also pushing to shoot down them, claiming that an unidentified flying object has been confirmed in its airspace.
When the US took issue with the unidentified flying object, it seems that China started a counter-fire operation, implying that the US is also flying an unidentified flying object in Chinese airspace.
As a result, there is a growing possibility that this year will be the ‘Year of Unidentified Flying Objects’ for US-China relations.
Bloomberg News reported on the 12th (local time) that China had spotted an unidentified flying object flying over the waters near Qingdao, a port city where the People’s Liberation Army’s main naval base is located, and was preparing to shoot it down.
Bloomberg quoted Chinese media ‘The Paper’ as saying.
The Paper reported that an official from Qingdao’s Jimo District Maritime Development Authority said that “the authorities are preparing to shoot down an unidentified flying object.”
Zhanggezhuang Naval Base, about 24 kilometers east of Qingdao, is the headquarters of China’s North Sea Fleet, where nuclear submarines and China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, are moored.
The Maritime Development Bureau of Jimo District asked the fishermen who were fishing to evacuate, and then instructed them to “take pictures if the falling object falls near the fishing boat, and cooperate with the salvage if possible.”
Huxijin Twitter captureAccording to the Ocean Development Bureau, the place where the unknown flying object is floating is known to be in the sea 60 kilometers south of Rizhao City on the Shandong Peninsula.
Hu Xijin, a former editor-in-chief of Global Times, who is known as the mouth of the Chinese Communist Party, also confirmed this.
He tweeted that day, “Unidentified flying objects have been confirmed in Rizhao waters. Authorities are expected to shoot it down soon. This year seems to go down in history as the year of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects). It is very mysterious,” he said.
Earlier, Reuters reported that the United States shot down an unidentified flying object that was spotted over Lake Huron that day.
Reuters quoted a US military official as saying that the US military shot down an unidentified flying object hovering over Lake Huron, located between the US states of Michigan and Canada’s Ontario.
This marks the fourth time that the United States and Canada have shot down an unidentified flying object believed to be of China.
On the 4th, a Chinese reconnaissance balloon was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean, and on the 10th, unidentified flying objects were shot down in Canadian airspace following Alaska in the United States on the 10th.
The United States and China are engaged in a ‘tit for tat’ over an unidentified flying object.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.