The Chinese foreign ministry responded to the U.S. military shooting down its spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday by claiming without evidence that the balloon was a civilian object and that the country was extremely upset by the action.

An F-22 Raptor took out the spy balloon with one air-to-air A9X sidewinder missile that was fired at an altitude of approximately 58,000 feet. The decision to shoot down the spy balloon came after President Joe Biden allowed the balloon to fly thousands of miles over the continental U.S. during the last several days.

“China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and protest against the US’s use of force to attack civilian unmanned aircraft,” the statement claimed. “The Chinese side has repeatedly informed the US side after verification that the airship is for civilian use and entered the US due to force majeure – it was completely an accident.”

“China clearly asked the US to handle it properly in a calm, professional and restrained manner. A spokesman for the US Department of Defense also stated that the balloon will not pose a military or personal threat to ground personnel,” the statement continued. “China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant companies, while reserving the right to make further necessary reaction.”

Biden tried to take a victory lap over the weekend after the spy balloon was shot down, claiming that he “ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible,” but that the decision was made to not shoot it down over land because debris could cause damage when falling to the ground.

U.S. officials were reportedly “well aware” that the balloon had crossed into American airspace on January 28 and that it was over Idaho on Tuesday, but decided not to inform the public to not upend Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s diplomatic trip to China.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the spy balloon was sent to the U.S. “in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States.”

Biden faced intense scrutiny from top lawmakers who said that the spy balloon should have been shot down last month when it crossed over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

Retired four-star Army General Jack Keane slammed President Joe Biden on Saturday for not shooting down the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the U.S. over the last several days when it was thousands of miles away from the continental U.S.

Keane, a former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army, made the remarks during a segment on Fox News immediately following the U.S. military shooting down the spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean after it passed South Carolina.

“Remember, this was approaching the United States over water,” Keane said. “It was approaching the Aleutian Islands over water. And we had plenty of opportunity to take it down then. And that’s when it should have happened. We had to be tracking it from mainland China across the Pacific Ocean, and we had plenty of warning to put together an operation that we are conducting now on the east coast that should have been done there.”

WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT:

ARTHEL NEVILLE, FOX NEWS HOST: Yeah, I heard your last point there. And I want to say, as we’re watching this exclusive coverage of this Chinese spy balloon going down there over Surfside Beach, South Carolina, if you could talk to us about what happened in terms of coordinating this to get to this point now, General Keane.

GENERAL JACK KEANE: Well, we’ve had all of our sensors watching this, you know, for some time. And certainly our military capability that was going to be involved got alerted. People have been planning it likely for a couple of days. I’m assuming the president, you know, made a decision within the last 24 hours to take this out. They probably presented him with a number of options of where the best place to do it, certainly heading to the East Coast, which is considerably more populated than Montana was. It was probably ruled out that they would do anything over land. If they weren’t willing to do it over Montana, they’re certainly not going to do it on the East coast of the United States or in transit to the East Coast. And they’re taking advantage of obviously doing this safely in terms of civilians. And it’s not a complicated operation, I don’t believe, for the United States military to take a balloon moving at the speed it’s moving at and bring it down. So the coordination to do that and the intelligence to bring all of that together is not a major problem for us at all. Now, can we recover the sensor package? That’s going to be iffy, given the size of this thing and how much it weighs. But nonetheless, we finally did what we should have done at the beginning. Remember, this was approaching the United States over water. It was approaching the Aleutian Islands over water. And we had plenty of opportunity to take it down then. And that’s when it should have happened. We had to be tracking it from mainland China across the Pacific Ocean, and we had plenty of warning to put together an operation that we are conducting now on the east coast that should have been done there. And by the way, we have alert aircraft in Alaska for the principal reason of a penetration coming largely from Russia, and that’s why that aircraft are there. And they would have been able to respond to this when it approached the United States in name of the Aleutian Islands. Now we’re doing it in the backdoor when it’s leaving the United States — it’s anti-climatic in that sense, but it still sends a message to China that we’re not going to let you get away with this nonsense.

Related: U.S. Military Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon After Biden Let It Travel Across Country