The United States shot down a giant Chinese balloon that it says has been spying on key military sites across the United States.
FEBRUARY 5: The Department of Defense confirmed that its warplanes shot down the balloon over US territorial waters.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry later expressed “strong dissatisfaction and protest against the US use of force to attack civilian drones.”
Images on American television networks showed the balloon falling into the sea after a small explosion.
An F-22 fighter jet engaged the high-altitude balloon with a missile, an AIM-9X Sidewinder, and came down about six nautical miles off the US coast at 2:39 p.m. EST (7:39 p.m. GMT). ), a defense official said. reporters
Defense officials told US media that debris fell 47 feet (14 m) deep, shallower than expected, near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The army is now trying to recover the rubble that stretches for seven miles (11 km). Two warships, including one with a heavy crane for recovery, are in the area.
In a Pentagon statement, a senior US defense official said that “while we take all necessary measures to protect ourselves against the PRC [China] the collection of confidential information from the surveillance balloon, the surveillance balloon’s flyover of US territory was of intelligence value to us.
“We were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable,” the official added.
US President Joe Biden had been under pressure to shoot down the balloon since defense officials first announced they were tracking it on Thursday.
After the balloon was shot down, Biden said, “They successfully brought it down and I want to congratulate our airmen who did it.”
In a statement a few hours later, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said: “The Chinese side has repeatedly informed the US side after verifying that the aircraft is for civilian use and entered the US by force majeure, It was completely an accident.”
The discovery of the balloon triggered a diplomatic crisis, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken immediately canceling this weekend’s trip to China over the “irresponsible act.”
Chinese authorities have denied it is a spy plane, saying instead it was a stray weather ship.
Reacting to the incident, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement: “Actions by the Chinese Communist Party government that violate international law and violate other countries’ airspace and sovereignty must not be tolerated in an international community.” civilized”.
China views self-governing Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually come under Beijing’s control. President Xi Jinping has not ruled out the possible use of force to achieve this.
But Taiwan sees itself as independent, with its own constitution and democratically elected leaders.
President Biden first approved the plan to shoot down the balloon on Wednesday, but the Pentagon said it had decided to wait until the object was above water so as not to put people on land at undue risk.
The groundwork for the operation was laid when the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) briefly halted all civilian flights at three airports around the South Carolina coast on Saturday afternoon due to a “security effort.” National security”.
The coast guard also advised sailors to leave the area due to military operations “presenting significant danger.”
An eyewitness on the coast, Hayley Walsh, told BBC News she saw three fighter jets circling before the missile was fired, then “we heard a big bang, the house shook.”
A senior military official told CNN that recovery of the debris should be “quite easy” and could take “a relatively short time.” The official added that “capable Navy divers” could be deployed to assist in the operation.
Defense officials also revealed Saturday that the balloon first entered US airspace on January 28 near the Aleutian Islands, before moving into Canadian airspace three days later and re-entering the USA on January 31. The object was seen in the US state of Montana, which is home to several sensitive nuclear missile sites.
Relations between China and the United States have been exacerbated by the incident, with the Pentagon calling it an “unacceptable violation” of US sovereignty.
Blinken, the top US diplomat, told Beijing it was “an irresponsible act” ahead of his now-cancelled February 5-6 trip: it would have been the first such high-level meeting between the US and China there in years.
But China tried to downplay the cancellation of his visit, saying in a statement on Saturday that neither side had formally announced a plan for a trip.
China’s foreign ministry said Beijing “would not accept any unsubstantiated conjecture or exaggeration” and accused “some politicians and media in the United States” of using the incident “as a pretext to attack and smear China.”
On Friday, the Pentagon said a second Chinese spy balloon had been sighted, this time over Latin America with reported sightings over Costa Rica and Venezuela.
The Colombian Air Force says an identified object, believed to be a balloon, was detected on February 3 in the country’s airspace above 55,000 feet.
It says it followed the object until it left the airspace, adding that it did not pose a threat to national security.
China has yet to publicly comment on the reported second balloon.
