WASHINGTON: U.S. officials claimed on Thursday that a suspected Chinese spy balloon had been flying over the country for a few days. This would be a daring gesture only days before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to visit Beijing.
Fighter planes were activated, but military officials warned President Joe Biden against firing the balloon out of the sky out of concern that flying debris could endanger his safety. Biden heeded their advice, according to U.S. sources.
One of the sources told reporters under the condition of anonymity that the United States had taken “custody” of the Chinese spy balloon when it entered American territory and had been watching it with manned military planes.
The event serves as a reminder of the lengths that Beijing and Washington have been willing to go to spy on each other, highlighting the escalating tensions between the superpowers.
Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder announced, “The United States government has located and is now tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is currently flying over the continental United States.”
The balloon is now flying at a height much above commercial air traffic, and neither a military threat nor a physical danger to anyone on the ground exists.
In accordance with a visit that Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to in November, Blinken is anticipated to depart for China the following week. It was unclear how the spy balloon’s discovery may affect such plans.
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An inquiry for comment from Reuters was not immediately answered by the Chinese foreign ministry.
Through diplomatic channels in Beijing and Washington, U.S. officials discussed the matter with their Chinese counterparts. According to a U.S. official, “We have expressed to them the seriousness with which we take this matter.”
The spy balloon, according to U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, is troubling but not unexpected.
Rubio wrote on Twitter, “Beijing’s degree of espionage aimed at our country has grown considerably more intense & blatant over the previous 5 years.
Senator Tom Cotton, a fellow Republican, urged Blinken to postpone his journey.
In reference to a classified national security briefing for congressional leaders and the Republican and Democratic leaders of the intelligence committees, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy indicated he will ask for a “Gang of Eight” briefing. A U.S. official stated that the Biden administration briefed Gang of Eight officials earlier on Thursday and has offered more briefings.
China is currently the “greatest geopolitical challenge” confronting the United States, according to CIA Director William Burns, who was speaking at a Georgetown University event when the news came.
In particular, after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s travel to Taiwan in August, which sparked major Chinese military drills close to the self-governing island, relations between China and the United States have deteriorated recently.
Since then, Washington and Beijing have worked to increase communication and stop relations from deteriorating.
POSSIBLE RISK TO SAFETY
According to the insider, American military officials debated shooting down the balloon over Montana on Wednesday but ultimately counselled Biden against it due to the danger posed by falling debris.
The military deployed resources, including F-22 fighter jets, in case Biden ordered them to shoot down the balloon and the airport in Billings, Montana, imposed a ground stop.
The official said, “We wanted to make sure we were working with civil authorities to clear the airspace over that prospective location.
“However, despite taking these safety precautions, our military commanders believed that we hadn’t lowered the risk to an acceptable level. We decided not to attempt the shot.”
Without providing further information, the official stated that the balloon would pass over several sensitive locations on its current flight path. 150 intercontinental ballistic missile silos are located at the Montanan Malmstrom Air Force Base.
A different U.S. official reported that before entering the country, they tracked the surveillance balloon near the Aleutian Islands and Canada.
Officials would not specify the balloon’s altitude, although they did admit that it was operating above commercial air travel and below “space.”
LESS VALUE OF INTELLIGENCE?
These balloons normally operate at altitudes of 80,000–120,000 feet (24,000–37,000m), which is much above the flight paths of commercial aircraft. Although spy planes like the U-2 have a service ceiling of 80,000 feet or higher, the best fighter aircraft normally do not fly above 65,000 feet.
Craig Singleton of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ China team stated that during the Cold War, both the US and the Soviet Union frequently used such balloons as a cheap way to gather intelligence.
Spy balloons have flown over the United States several times in recent years, but this balloon appeared to be lingering longer than in previous instances, an official said.
The official stated, “At this time, we believe that this balloon has minimal added value from an intelligence gathering standpoint. Nevertheless, we are taking efforts to guard against foreign intelligence collection of sensitive information.
Singapore-based security researcher Alexander Neill stated that although the balloon may cause new frustration in China-U.S. relations, it probably has low intelligence value compared to other advanced tools in China’s modernizing military arsenal.
According to Neill, an adjunct fellow at Hawaii’s Pacific Forum think tank, “China has its own constellation of spy and military satellites that are far more vital and successful in terms of watching the U.S., so I believe it is a fair assumption that the intelligence gain is not huge.”