US downs ‘spy’ balloon over ocean
OPERATION LAUNCHED TO RECOVER DEBRIS FROM US TERRITORIAL WATERS
The United States last night downed a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America and became the latest flashpoint in tensions between Washington and Beijing.
An operation was under way in US territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean to recover debris from the balloon, which had been flying at about 60,000 feet and was estimated to be about the size of three school buses.
Military operations
Television footage showed a small explosion, followed by the balloon descending toward the water. US military jets were seen flying in the vicinity and ships were deployed in the water to mount the recovery operation.
Officials were aiming to time the operation so they could recover as much of the debris as possible before it sinks into the ocean. The Pentagon had previously estimated that any debris field would be substantial.
The balloon was spotted Saturday morning over the Carolinas as it approached the coast. In preparation for the operation, the FAA Administration temporarily closed airspace over the Carolina coastline, including the airports in Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina. The FAA rerouted air traffic from the area and warned of delays as a result of the flight restrictions.
The public disclosure of the balloon this week prompted the cancellation of a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing scheduled for today for talks aimed at reducing USChina tensions.
President Joe Biden said yesterday that he ordered US officials to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this week and that national security leaders decided the best time for the operation was when the it got over water. “They successfully took it down and I want to complement our aviators who did it,” Biden said after getting off Air Force One en route to Camp David.
Fighter jets shot down the giant white balloon off the Carolina coast after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America and became the latest flashpoint in tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that Biden approved the shootdown on Wednesday, saying it should be done “as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s path.”
Austin said that due to the size and altitude of the balloon, which was moving at about 60,000 feet in the air, the military had determined that taking it down over land would pose an undue risk to people on the ground.
The balloon was spotted yesterday morning over the Carolinas as it approached the coast. In preparation for the operation, the FAA Administration temporarily closed airspace over the Carolina coastline, including the airports in Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina. The FAA rerouted air traffic from the area and warned of delays as a result of the flight restrictions.
An operation was under way in US territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean to recover debris from the balloon, which had been flying at about 60,000 feet and was estimated to be about the size of three school buses.
Flight restrictions
The public disclosure of the balloon this week prompted the cancellation of a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing scheduled for today for talks aimed at reducing US-China tensions. The Chinese government yesterday sought to play down the cancellation.
“In actuality, the US and China have never announced any visit, the U.S. making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement yesterday morning.
China’s flight of a balloon appears to mark a more aggressive — albeit puzzling — espionage tactic than relying on satellites and the theft of industrial and defense secrets, security experts said.
Both the US and China have for decades used surveillance satellites to keep an eye on each other from the air. But China’s recent balloons — a White House official said this week’s episode was not the first — have some in Washington scratching their heads.
“In a way, it’s more amateurish,” said former White House national security adviser John Bolton. “Do the cameras in their satellites not have high enough resolution that they have to send a balloon over?”
The uproar over the balloon comes as China has been building up its military capabilities and challenging America’s military presence in the Pacific. The US also believes Beijing routinely seeks to capture proprietary information and knowledge from US companies.
Scientific purposes
China said the balloon was for civilian meteorological and scientific purposes that strayed into US airspace, yesterday accusing US politicians and media of taking advantage of the situation to discredit China. It has previously rebuffed accusations of espionage and said the US holds a Cold War mentality and hypes up the ‘China threat.’
The balloon discovered this week appeared deliberately provocative, said Dean Cheng, senior advisor to the China program at the US Institute of Peace.
“This is a way to test how does the other side respond, not in a military sense. But politically, what do you do about it? Do you keep it quiet? If there have been in fact many and this is not the first time, then it raises an interesting question.
What happened to the previous ones? Did we shoot them down? he said.
Mike Rounds, a Republican member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, told Fox News it would be good to recover the balloon to see “if it was designed to actually collect data or if it was designed to test our response capabilities.” Andrew Antonio, co-founder of high-altitude balloon startup Urban Sky, said the wind currents high-altitude balloons depend on for steering on longdistance trips were least favorable in the winter, suggesting China’s intentions might not have been be to target any specific location in the United States.
“Specifically targeting a certain military base with that balloon from a launch in China, in January or February, in the northern hemisphere, is very difficult to do, if not impossible,” Antonio said, speculating that the balloon’s venture into U.S. airspace could have been the result of a failed experiment, or some failure in its selftermination system.
Austin said that due to the size and altitude of the balloon, which was moving at about 60,000 feet in the air, the military had determined that taking it down over land would pose an undue risk to people on the ground.