WASHINGTON/BEIJING: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is postponing a visit to China that was due to begin Friday after a Chinese spy balloon was tracked flying across the country, ABC News reported.
The network said that Blinken didn’t want to blow the situation out of proportion by canceling his visit, but he also didn’t want the incident to dominate his meetings with Chinese officials.
China earlier expressed regret that what it called a “civilian” airship went missing over US territory, an incident that has caused a political stir in the US.
On Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told reporters that the government was tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental United States and said it “was traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground”.
U.S. military leaders considered shooting down the balloon over Montana on Wednesday, but President Joe Biden ultimately decided against it because of the security risk from the debris, U.S. officials said Thursday.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton had asked Blinken to cancel his trip, while former Republican President Donald Trump, declared presidential candidate for 2024, posted “SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON!” on his social media truth platform.
In a statement on Friday, China’s foreign ministry said the balloon was intended for civilian meteorological and other scientific purposes and that it regretted the airship had become lost in US airspace.
He said he would continue to communicate with the United States to “properly handle” the unexpected situation. A Chinese government spokesman earlier said that “China has no intention of infringing on the land territory and airspace of any sovereign country.”
US officials said they raised the issue with their Chinese counterparts through diplomatic channels. “We have communicated to them how seriously we take this issue,” a US official said.
The postponement of Blinken’s trip, agreed to in November by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, will come as a major blow to those on both sides who saw it as an overdue opportunity to stabilize an increasingly fractious relationship.
China longs for a stable relationship with the US so it can focus on its economy, battered by the now-abandoned zero-Covid policy and neglected by foreign investors alarmed by what they see as a return of state intervention in the market.
A US official said the balloon was assessed to have “limited additive value from an intelligence-gathering perspective”.
The United States took “custody” of the balloon when it entered US airspace and observed it with US-manned military aircraft, a US official said.
A US official said the flight path would take the balloon over a number of sensitive sites, but did not provide details. Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana houses 150 ICBM silos.
The news was initially broken Thursday as CIA Director William Burns was speaking at an event at Georgetown University in Washington, where he called China the “biggest geopolitical challenge” facing the United States.
US Senator Mark Rubythe top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee said the spy balloon was alarming but not surprising.
“The level of espionage aimed at our country by Beijing has become dramatically more intense and blatant over the past 5 years,” Rubio said on Twitter.
Billings, Montana airport issued a ground hold as the military mobilized assets, including F-22 fighter jets, in case Biden ordered the balloon shot down.
Defense expert John Parachini estimated the size of the balloon to be equivalent to three bus lengths.
Billings resident Chase Doak, who filmed it Wednesday, said he thought he was a star at first.
“But I thought it was a little crazy because it was broad daylight and when I looked at him, he was just too old to be a star,” she told Reuters.
Such balloons typically operate at 80,000-120,000 feet (24,000-37,000 meters), well above where commercial air traffic flies. The best performing fighter aircraft do not typically operate above 65,000 feet, although spy planes such as the U-2 have a service ceiling of 80,000 feet or more.
Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said such balloons had been used extensively by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and are a low-cost method of intelligence gathering.
The network said that Blinken didn’t want to blow the situation out of proportion by canceling his visit, but he also didn’t want the incident to dominate his meetings with Chinese officials.
China earlier expressed regret that what it called a “civilian” airship went missing over US territory, an incident that has caused a political stir in the US.
On Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told reporters that the government was tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental United States and said it “was traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground”.
U.S. military leaders considered shooting down the balloon over Montana on Wednesday, but President Joe Biden ultimately decided against it because of the security risk from the debris, U.S. officials said Thursday.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton had asked Blinken to cancel his trip, while former Republican President Donald Trump, declared presidential candidate for 2024, posted “SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON!” on his social media truth platform.
In a statement on Friday, China’s foreign ministry said the balloon was intended for civilian meteorological and other scientific purposes and that it regretted the airship had become lost in US airspace.
He said he would continue to communicate with the United States to “properly handle” the unexpected situation. A Chinese government spokesman earlier said that “China has no intention of infringing on the land territory and airspace of any sovereign country.”
US officials said they raised the issue with their Chinese counterparts through diplomatic channels. “We have communicated to them how seriously we take this issue,” a US official said.
The postponement of Blinken’s trip, agreed to in November by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, will come as a major blow to those on both sides who saw it as an overdue opportunity to stabilize an increasingly fractious relationship.
China longs for a stable relationship with the US so it can focus on its economy, battered by the now-abandoned zero-Covid policy and neglected by foreign investors alarmed by what they see as a return of state intervention in the market.
A US official said the balloon was assessed to have “limited additive value from an intelligence-gathering perspective”.
The United States took “custody” of the balloon when it entered US airspace and observed it with US-manned military aircraft, a US official said.
A US official said the flight path would take the balloon over a number of sensitive sites, but did not provide details. Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana houses 150 ICBM silos.
The news was initially broken Thursday as CIA Director William Burns was speaking at an event at Georgetown University in Washington, where he called China the “biggest geopolitical challenge” facing the United States.
US Senator Mark Rubythe top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee said the spy balloon was alarming but not surprising.
“The level of espionage aimed at our country by Beijing has become dramatically more intense and blatant over the past 5 years,” Rubio said on Twitter.
Billings, Montana airport issued a ground hold as the military mobilized assets, including F-22 fighter jets, in case Biden ordered the balloon shot down.
Defense expert John Parachini estimated the size of the balloon to be equivalent to three bus lengths.
Billings resident Chase Doak, who filmed it Wednesday, said he thought he was a star at first.
“But I thought it was a little crazy because it was broad daylight and when I looked at him, he was just too old to be a star,” she told Reuters.
Such balloons typically operate at 80,000-120,000 feet (24,000-37,000 meters), well above where commercial air traffic flies. The best performing fighter aircraft do not typically operate above 65,000 feet, although spy planes such as the U-2 have a service ceiling of 80,000 feet or more.
Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said such balloons had been used extensively by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and are a low-cost method of intelligence gathering.
