China Offers ‘No Apology’ in First Meeting After Spy Balloon Incident, Blinken Says

China’s senior foreign minister offered “no apology” in his meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken for the spy balloon that floated over the U.S., Blinken said in an interview Saturday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

“There was no apology,” Blinken said of his conversation with Wang Yi, director of the People’s Republic of China CCP Central Foreign Affairs office. “But what I can also tell you is this was an opportunity to speak very clearly and very directly about the fact that China sent a surveillance balloon over our territory, violating our sovereignty, violating international law.”

“And I told him quite simply that that was unacceptable and can never happen again,” Blinken said.

Four high-altitude objects have been shot down by the U.S. military since Feb 4. Here’s a timeline of those events.

Blinken met with Wang on Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany prior to the interview.

Diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and China have increased since the U.S. shot down what it says was a spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina. China has insisted the balloon was not intended for surveillance.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.