The recent US shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon and other unidentified flying objects is a “sign of how the global threat picture is changing for the worse,” a senior British official warned on Monday.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace made the remark to The Telegraph less than a day after President Biden ordered an F-16 to shoot down an aerial object flying about 20,000 feet above Lake Huron.
He followed the shooting down of mysterious objects in Canada and Alaska and the Chinese spy balloon near South Carolina.
“The UK and its allies will look into what these airspace intrusions mean for our security,” Wallace said, according to Reuters. “This development is another sign of how the global threat landscape is changing for the worse.”
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China’s spy balloon drifts over the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina, with a fighter jet and its contrail seen below it, Saturday, Feb. 4. (Chad Fish via AP)
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, when asked to react to Wallace’s comments at a press conference in Beijing on Monday, said: “We have already stated our position on the incident in question.
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British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace speaks during a news conference following his meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the British Embassy in Moscow, Russia February 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)
“All sides should look at this objectively and stop highlighting the issue,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
A balloon flies in the sky above Billings, Montana, USA, February 1, 2023 in this image obtained from social media. (Chase Doak/via Reuters)
Britain’s transport undersecretary Richard Holden also told Sky News on Monday that “it is possible” that China has already flown spy balloons over Britain.
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“The government is concerned about what is happening,” he said, according to Reuters. “China is a hostile state and we need to be aware of that and the way it acts and behaves.”
