Beijing denied a request for a call between Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and his colleague over a closed line on the day a US warplane shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon. This was announced on Twitter by Foreign Policy national security reporter Jake Deutsch, citing US Department of Defense spokesman Patrick Ryder..

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He added that at such moments, the presence of telephone contact between the US and Chinese military is especially important.. However, China rejected the request.. At the same time, according to Ryder, the US is still open to communication with China..

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China claims the balloon was a weather probe and had no military purpose, but Washington described it as a sophisticated high-altitude spycraft.

After flying across the United States over several top-secret military installations, the balloon was shot down by the US military on Saturday..

The United States said it did not plan to return to Beijing the wreckage of a Chinese reconnaissance balloon shot down by the Pentagon on Saturday, even after technical experts complete an analysis of the surveillance capabilities that were on board.