Pentagon tracking Chinese spy balloon
THE Pentagon said Thursday it was tracking a Chinese spy balloon flying high over the United States, reviving tensions between the two countries just days ahead of a rare visit to Beijing by the top US diplomat.
At President Joe Biden’s request, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and top military officials considered shooting the balloon down but decided doing so would endanger too many people on the ground, a senior defense official told reporters Thursday.
“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.
China said on Friday it was working to verify the facts around US claims that Beijing flew a spy balloon over its territory, warning against “hype” over the issue.
“Verification is under way” over the reports, foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular briefing, adding that “until the facts are clear, making conjectures and hyping up the issue will not help to properly resolve it.”
“China is a responsible country and always abides strictly by international law. We have no intention of violating the territory or airspace of any sovereign country,” she said.
“(We) hope that both sides will handle (the situation) with mutual calm and prudence,” she added.
The discovery of the aircraft comes just days before an expected 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.
In addition to ongoing disputes over trade and intellectual property, relations between the two countries have frayed, particularly over democratically-governed Taiwan, which China has pledged to reunite with the mainland.