Pentagon tracking spy balloon
China verifying craft in US airspace, asking not to hype up issue
Washington: The Pentagon said it was tracking a Chinese spy balloon flying high over the United States, just days ahead of a rare visit to Beijing by a top US diplomat.
After President Joe Biden requested military options, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and top military officials considered shooting the balloon down, a senior defence official said on Thursday.
But they decided doing so would endanger too many people on the ground, and because they assessed the balloon did not pose a threat to civilian aviation, the official said.
“Clearly, the intent of this balloon is for surveillance,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official added that the balloon had flown over the northwest United States, where there are sensitive airbases and nuclear missiles in underground silos, but that the Pentagon did not believe it constituted a particularly dangerous intelligence threat.
“We assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective,” the official said.
The official added that there was “no doubt” the balloon was Chinese, without explaining why.
When asked about the US comments, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Mao Ning warned against “hyping up” the issue, without giving a clear response on whether the balloon was from China. “Verification is underway,” Mao said.
The discovery of the aircraft comes just days before a scheduled visit to China by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with managing heightened tensions between the two powers at the top of the agenda.
Blinken’s visit to Beijing, which follows a meeting last November between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit, will be the first trip to the Asian country by the United States’ top diplomat since 2018.
The defence official said the balloon entered US airspace “a couple days ago,” but that American intelligence had been tracking it well before that.
Fighter jets were flown to examine it while it was above Montana as discussions took place.
Beijing has sent surveillance balloons over the United States in the past.
However, this one has lingered in US airspace much longer, the senior US defence official said.