US shoots down suspected Chinese spy balloon with a missile

Washington, United States:

US military fighter jets shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon floating off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, ending a dramatic saga that has put the spotlight on deteriorating Sino-US relations.

President Joe Biden said, “We successfully took it down, and I want to congratulate our aviators.”

Biden said he had issued an order on Wednesday to bring the balloon down, but the Pentagon recommended waiting until civilians could see the debris from thousands of feet (meters) above commercial air traffic. This cannot be done on open water to avoid falling.

Several fighter and refueling aircraft were involved in the mission, but only one – an F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia – took the shot at 2:39 p.m. (1939 GMT), using an AIM-9X . The supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile, a senior US military official said.

Officials said the balloon was downed in relatively shallow waters, about six nautical miles off the US coast, in possible efforts to recover key elements of Chinese surveillance equipment amid the wreckage in the coming days.

The shootings began shortly after the US government ordered a halt to flights in and out of three airports in South Carolina – Wilmington, Myrtle Beach and Charleston – as part of what it said at the time was an undisclosed “national security effort”. Was. Flights resumed on Saturday afternoon.

A US defense official said the balloon first entered US airspace on January 28 and moved into Canadian airspace on Monday, January 30. It then re-entered US airspace on 31 January. Once it crossed US land, it did not return to open water, making shootdowns difficult.

US officials did not publicly disclose the balloon’s presence in the United States until Thursday.

A US official said Washington called it a “clear violation” of US sovereignty and informed Beijing of the firing on Saturday.

“Our assessment – and we’re going to learn more as we pick up the debris – was that it was unlikely to provide significant additive value over and above other (Chinese) Intel capability, such as satellites in low-Earth orbit, said the senior US defense official. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin first announced the shootdown, saying the balloons were being used by China “in an effort to survey strategic sites in the continental United States”.

A Reuters photographer who witnessed the shootdown said that a jet came from a jet and hit the balloon, but there was no explosion. After that it started falling apart, the photographer said.

US officials said the US military did not immediately recover the payload from the Chinese surveillance balloon.

The FAA issued a temporary flight restriction to clear airspace around the South Carolina coast. According to a document posted by the FAA, the notice blocked flights over more than 100 square miles (260 square kilometers) — mostly over the Atlantic Ocean. The notice warned that the military could use lethal force if the airmen violated the restrictions and did not obey orders to leave.

A Reuters photographer in the Myrtle Beach area could see suspected spy balloons overhead, with two US military jets flying alongside.

China expressed regret that the “airship” used for civilian meteorological and other scientific purposes had strayed into US airspace.

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that the flight of an “airship” over the United States was a blatant accident, and accused American politicians and the media of exploiting the situation to discredit Beijing.

But the Pentagon’s assessment is that the balloon was the latest in a string of Chinese spy balloon activity spread around the world. On Friday it said another Chinese balloon was currently flying over Latin America.

“Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have been seen in countries across five continents, including East Asia, South Asia and Europe,” the senior defense official said. The suspected Chinese spy balloon prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a trip to China this week that was expected to begin on Friday.

The postponement of the trip to Blinken, which Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed upon in November, is a blow to those who saw it as an overdue opportunity to stabilize the fast-growing relationship between the two countries. seen as

China is eager for a stable US relationship so it can focus on its economy, now battered by the abandoned zero-Covid policy and neglected by foreign investors, which they see as a return to state intervention in the market. lets see.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)