The airship shot down by the United States belongs to China and not the United States, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.
"What I can say is that this airship is China's, not the US's," the spokesperson, Mao Ning, told a regular news briefing.
The official was responding to a question on whether China had asked the United States to return debris from the suspected surveillance balloon shot down when it flew over sensitive military and nuclear missle silo sites.