China threatens consequences of downed spy balloon and reserves ‘right to take further retaliatory action’
WASHINGTON (AP) — The US military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolinas on Saturday after it flew over classified military installations in North America. China insisted that the flyover was an accident involving a civilian aircraft and threatened consequences.
President Joe Biden issued the order, but even earlier, on Wednesday, he demanded that the balloon be lowered. According to US officials, he was told that the best time for the operation would be when she was above water. Military officials determined that it would pose an undue risk to people on the ground if it fell off the ground from a height of 60,000 feet.
China responded that it reserved the right to “take further action” and criticized the US for “an apparent overreaction and a serious breach of international practice.”
In a statement on Sunday, China’s Foreign Ministry said “China will resolutely protect the legitimate rights and interests of the relevant company, and at the same time reserves the right to take further retaliatory action.”
The presence of a hot air balloon in the skies over the US this week has dealt a severe blow to an already strained US-China relationship that has been in a downward spiral for years. This prompted Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to abruptly cancel a high-stakes trip to Beijing aimed at easing tensions.
“They successfully shot it down, and I want to thank our airmen who did it,” Biden said after getting off the Air Force One plane en route to Camp David.
The giant white orb was spotted Saturday morning over the Carolinas as it approached the Atlantic coast. Around 2:39 pm EST, an F-22 fighter fired a missile at the balloon, piercing it while it was about 6 nautical miles off the coast near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, senior Defense Department officials said.
The spectacle had Americans staring up into the sky all week, wondering if a mysterious hot air balloon had passed over them.
On Saturday, 33-year-old Ashlyn Preo went to get the mail in Forestbrook, South Carolina, and noticed her neighbors looking up – and here it is, a balloon in a cloudless blue sky. Then she saw the fighter jets circle and hit the balloon.
“I didn’t expect to wake up today in Top Gun,” she said.
The wreckage landed in 47 feet of water, less than officials expected, and it spread for about seven miles, with several ships involved in the recovery operation. Officials estimate that restoration work will be completed in a short time, not weeks. The rescue ship was on its way.
U.S. Department of Defense and military officials said on Saturday that the balloon entered U.S. air defenses north of the Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28 and flew mostly over land over Alaska before entering Canadian airspace in the Northwest Territories on Monday. He returned to US soil over northern Idaho on Tuesday, the day the White House said Biden was first briefed.
The balloon was spotted Thursday over Montana, home to the Malmstrom Air Force Base, which has silos for nuclear missiles.
According to two senior Defense Department officials, the Americans were able to gather intelligence on the balloon as it flew over the US, which gave them days to analyze it and learn how it moved and what it could track. Officials briefed journalists on condition of anonymity.
Officials said the US military was constantly evaluating the threat and concluded that the balloon technology did not provide China with significant intelligence beyond what they could already get from satellites, although the US has taken steps to tone down the amount of information that they could collect. it moved forward.
Republicans criticized Biden’s response.
“Allowing a Chinese Communist Party spy balloon to travel across the entire continental United States before challenging its presence is a disastrous display of White House weakness,” said Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican in the Senate for the Armed Services. Committee.
Sen. Tom Tillis, RN.C., tweeted, “Now that this embarrassing episode is over, we need answers from the Biden administration about the decision-making process. Communist China was allowed to freely violate American sovereignty for several days. We should be better prepared for future provocations and incursions by the CCP.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., was more positive: “Thank you to the men and women of the United States military who were in charge of the mission to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon. The Biden administration did the right thing by lowering it.”
China said the balloon was simply a weather research “airship” that had drifted off course. The Pentagon promptly dismissed this, as well as China’s claim that it was not used for surveillance and had only limited navigational capabilities.
The Chinese government on Saturday tried to play down the cancellation of Blinken’s trip. “In fact, the US and China have never announced any visit, any such US announcement is their own business and we respect that,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Pentagon also confirmed reports of a second balloon flying over Latin America. “Now we are evaluating that this is another Chinese reconnaissance balloon,” said Brig. This is stated in a statement by Pentagon spokesman General Pat Ryder. Officials said the balloons are part of a fleet China uses for surveillance and can be controlled remotely using small motors and propellers. One official said they carry equipment in a capsule under the balloon that is not normally associated with standard meteorological activities or civilian research.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a question about the second balloon.
This is not the first time Chinese spy balloons have crossed US airspace in recent years, one official said. At least three times during the Trump administration and at least once more during Biden’s tenure, they saw the balloons cross, the official said, but not for that long.
Blinken, who was due to fly from Washington to Beijing late Friday night, said he told senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in a telephone conversation that the launch of the balloon over the US was “an irresponsible act and that (China’s) decision to take this action on the eve of my visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions we were prepared for.”
The uncensored reaction on the Chinese internet reflected the government’s official position that the US was making a big deal of the situation. Some used it as a chance to ridicule the US defense by saying it couldn’t even protect against a balloon, and powerful nationalists jumped in to use the news to ridicule the US.
China denied any allegations of espionage and said it was a civilian balloon for meteorological research. The Foreign Office stressed that the balloon’s journey was out of its control and urged the US not to smear it over the balloon.
In preparation for Saturday’s operation, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily closed airspace over the Carolina coast, including airports in Myrtle Beach and Charleston, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina. The FAA has diverted air traffic from the area and warned of delays due to flight restrictions. The FAA and the Coast Guard worked to clear the airspace and water below the balloon as it reached the ocean.
Television footage showed a small explosion followed by a giant deflated balloon descending like a ribbon towards the water.
Bill Swanson said he watched the balloon instantly deflate from his Myrtle Beach home as fighter jets circled around.
“When it deflated, it was almost instantaneous,” he said. “One second it’s there, like a tiny moon, and the next second it’s gone.” Swanson added that a trail of smoke followed the balloon as it fell.
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Associated Press contributors Chris Megerian in Hagerstown, Maryland; Tara Kopp and Mary Claire Jalonik in Washington; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; Kimberly Crusie in Nashville, Tennessee; Huizhong Wu in Taipei; and researcher Henry Hou from Beijing contributed to this report.
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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.
