China-made spy balloon escalates tensions between China and US

The U.S. is track­ing sus­pect­ed Chi­nese sur­veil­lance bal­loons spot­ted over U.S. air­space, and Chi­na said on Fri­day it would study the reports as find­ings that would fur­ther strain already strained rela­tions between Bei­jing and Wash­ing­ton. Announced.

The Pen­ta­gon decid­ed not to shoot down the bal­loon, which could fly over sen­si­tive loca­tions, for fear of harm­ing peo­ple on the ground.

The news comes as US Sec­re­tary of State Antho­ny Brinken is sched­uled to vis­it Bei­jing for the first time this week­end. The vis­it was not offi­cial­ly announced, and it was unclear whether the bal­loon’s dis­cov­ery would affect trav­el plans.

Chi­na’s for­eign min­istry spokesman Mao Ning said he knew noth­ing about the trip. How­ev­er, Chi­na said, “We have no inten­tion of infring­ing on the ter­ri­to­ry or air­space of any sov­er­eign nation,” and called for a calm response until the facts are clarified.

In a mis­sion to ease a sharp dete­ri­o­ra­tion in rela­tions between the two coun­tries amid trade dis­putes and con­cerns over Bei­jing’s aggres­sive stance on Tai­wan and the South Chi­na Sea, Blinken said he will serve as pres­i­dent of the Joe Biden admin­is­tra­tion. will vis­it Chi­na as the high­est-rank­ing mem­ber of the

A senior Pen­ta­gon offi­cial told Pen­ta­gon reporters on Wednes­day that the object seen in US air­space in recent days was a high-alti­tude Chi­nese bal­loon fly­ing over a sen­si­tive loca­tion for intel­li­gence gath­er­ing. said it had a “very high degree of credibility”.

One loca­tion where the bal­loon was sight­ed is in Mon­tana, home to Malm­strom Air Force Base, one of three nuclear mis­sile silos in the coun­try. The offi­cial spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to speak con­fi­den­tial information.

Defense offi­cials said the U.S. assessed bal­loons as hav­ing “lim­it­ed” val­ue in pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion that oth­er tech­nolo­gies, such as spy satel­lites, could not provide.

It is unknown what will hap­pen to the bal­loon if it is not shot down.

Mao Zedong said Chi­na was try­ing to grasp the sit­u­a­tion, hop­ing that “both sides can deal with it calm­ly and cautiously.”

“Chi­na is a respon­si­ble coun­try, always strict­ly abid­ing by inter­na­tion­al law, and has no inten­tion of encroach­ing on the ter­ri­to­ry and air­space of any sov­er­eign state,” he said.

A day ear­li­er, Pen­ta­gon spokesman Brigadier Gen­er­al Patrick Ryder said sim­i­lar bal­loon activ­i­ty had been observed in recent years and the gov­ern­ment had tak­en steps to ensure sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion was not stolen.

Ryder said the bal­loons fly far above com­mer­cial air­craft alti­tudes and pose no threat to peo­ple on the ground.

Biden was briefed and asked the mil­i­tary to present its options, said a senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial who was not autho­rized to speak pub­licly on clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion. A senior Defense Depart­ment offi­cial said the Unit­ed States has fight­er jets, includ­ing F‑22s, ready to shoot down bal­loons if ordered to do so.

Sec­re­tary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gen­er­al) Mark Mil­ley advised against “kinet­ic action” because it could com­pro­mise the safe­ty of peo­ple on the ground. Biden accept­ed the recommendation.

Although the bal­loon was over a sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed area of Mon­tana, its size would cre­ate a debris field large enough to endan­ger residents.

Defense min­istry offi­cials did not spec­i­fy the size of the bal­loon, but said it could be spot­ted by a civil­ian pilot from the cockpit.

The sur­veil­lance bal­loon was first report­ed by NBC News.

The Billings Gazette cap­tures a pho­to­graph of a large white bal­loon in flight. Billings Gazette pho­tog­ra­ph­er Lar­ry Mey­er said the bal­loon was mov­ing through clouds and had what appeared to be solar pan­els hang­ing from the bottom.

The bal­loon’s appear­ance has fueled US law­mak­ers’ nation­al secu­ri­ty con­cerns about Chi­na’s influ­ence in the US, from the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the wild­ly pop­u­lar smart­phone app Tik­Tok to its pur­chase of US farmland.