Blinken meets China's Wang Yi in Munich amid strained ties over balloon

MUNICH/BEIJING, Feb 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on Saturday with China's top diplomat Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, a senior State Department official said, amid a running dispute between the two world powers over a suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down by the United States.

"We can confirm that Secretary Blinken concluded a meeting with ... Wang Yi on the margins of the Munich Security Conference," the State Department official said by email, on condition of anonymity.

Less than two hours before, a Reuters witness had seen Blinken's motorcade leave his hotel for an undisclosed location.

The dispute over the balloon - which flew over the United States and Canada before being shot down on President Joe Biden's orders, hurt bilateral relations and came at a time when the West is closely watching Beijing's response to the Ukraine war.

Earlier on Saturday, Wang took a swipe at the United States, accusing it of violating international norms with "hysterical" behavior by shooting down the balloon.

"To have dispatched an advanced fighter jet to shoot down a balloon with a missile, such behavior is unbelievable, almost hysterical," Wang said on Saturday.

"There are so many balloons all over the world, and various countries have them, so is the United States going to shoot all of them down?" he said.

"We ask the U.S. to show its sincerity and correct its mistakes, face up and resolve this incident, which has damaged Sino-U.S. relations."

The balloon's flight this month over the U.S. mainland triggered an uproar in Washington and prompted Blinken to postpone a planned visit to Beijing. That Feb. 5-6 trip would have been the first by a U.S. secretary of state to China in five years and was seen by both sides as an opportunity to stabilize increasingly fraught ties.

Washington had been hoping to put a "floor" under relations that hit a dangerous low in August with China's reaction to a visit to Taiwan by then-U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

China reacted angrily when the U.S. military shot down the 200-foot (60-meter) balloon on Feb. 4, saying it was for monitoring weather conditions and had blown off course. But Washington said it clearly was a surveillance balloon with a massive undercarriage holding electronics.

On Thursday, Biden gave a speech focusing on the balloon incident. He said he expected to speak with China's President Xi Jinping about it and hoped to get to the bottom of the affair.

In his most extensive remarks to date about the Chinese balloon and three unidentified objects downed by U.S. fighters, Biden did not say when he would speak with Xi, but said the United States was continuing to engage diplomatically with China on the issue.

"We are not looking for a new Cold War," he said.