China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday ridiculed the Biden administration for focusing its energies on harmless objects in U.S. airspace but playing down the giant chemical fire in Ohio that has thousands of residents worried about long-term health consequences.
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The spokesman for the ministry, Wang Wenbin, was asked to respond to a claim from the White House that China was "deflecting" from the spy balloon incident by sanctioning U.S. companies this week. In response, Wang accused the Biden administration of continuing to focus on China even at the expense of the health of its own citizens.
"Speaking of ‘deflecting,’ can the U.S. tell us why it is able to see the ‘balloon’ 18,000 meters above the ground, but seems to have been blind to the toxic mushroom cloud of vinyl chloride over Ohio?" Wang said.
BIDEN SAYS THREE AERIAL ‘OBJECTS’ US SHOT DOWN LIKELY NOT RELATED TO CHINA SURVEILLANCE
President Joe Biden China Xi Jinping
China took the Biden administration to task for shooting harmless objects out of the sky while downplaying the toxic chemical fire in Ohio.
The jab came after the Biden administration has faced several days of criticism for downplaying the derailment of a train in East Palestine, Ohio, that was carrying toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride. After the train derailed, the decision was made to burn off chemicals on the train in order to manage a controlled release into the air, in order to avoid a possible explosion.
That decision created a thick, black plume of smoke, and in the days that followed, people reported illness and the death of animals.