China played down the cancellation of a visit by US secretary of state Antony Blinken after a large Chinese balloon suspected of conducting surveillance on US military sites roiled diplomatic relations, saying that neither side had formally announced any such plan.

“In actuality, the US and China have never announced any visit, the US making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that,” China’s ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement on Saturday morning.

Blinken was supposed to visit Beijing on Sunday for talks aimed at reducing US-China tensions, the first such high-profile trip after the countries’ leaders met last November in Indonesia. But the US abruptly cancelled the trip after the discovery of the huge balloon despite China’s claim that it was merely a weather research “airship”.

The Pentagon rejected that out of hand.

Uncensored reactions on the Chinese Internet mirrored the official government stance that the US was hyping up the situation. Many users made jokes about the balloon. Some said that since the US had put restrictions to weaken the Chinese tech industry, they couldn’t control the balloon.

Others called it the “wandering balloon” in a pun that refers to the newly released Chinese sci-fi film called The Wandering Earth 2.