A Chinese spy balloon has been flying over the United States for a couple of days, US officials said on Thursday, just days ahead of a planned trip to Beijing by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
\nFighter jets were mobilised, but military leaders advised US President Joe Biden against shooting the balloon out of the sky for fear debris could pose a safety threat, advice Biden accepted, US officials said.
\nThe United States took \u201ccustody\u201d of the balloon when it entered US airspace and had observed it with piloted US military aircraft, one of the officials told reporters on condition of anonymity.
\nSeparately, Canada\u2019s defence ministry said a \u201chigh-altitude surveillance balloon\u201d was detected and that it was monitoring a \u201cpotential second incident\u201d, without giving further details, adding that it was in frequent contact with the United States.
\nThe news initially broke as CIA Director William Burns was speaking at an event at Washington\u2019s Georgetown University, where he called China the \u201cbiggest geopolitical challenge\u201d facing the United States.
\n\u201cThe United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now,\u201d Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told reporters. \u201cThe balloon is currently travelling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.\u201d
\nChinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing was \u201cverifying\u201d the situation.
\n\u201cI would like to emphasise that until the facts are clarified, speculation and hype will not be helpful to the proper resolution of the issue,\u201d she told a regular daily briefing in Beijing on Friday.
\nUS officials said they raised the matter with their Chinese counterparts through diplomatic channels. \u201cWe have communicated to them the seriousness with which we take this issue,\u201d a US official said.
\nOne US official said the balloon was assessed to have \u201climited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective.\u201d
\nBlinken is expected to travel to China next week for a visit agreed to in November by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. It was not clear how the discovery of the spy balloon might affect those plans.
\nUS Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, said the spy balloon was alarming but not surprising.
\n\u201cThe level of espionage aimed at our country by Beijing has grown dramatically more intense & brazen over the last 5 years,\u201d Rubio said on Twitter.
\nRepublican Senator Tom Cotton called for Blinken to cancel his trip.
\nRepublican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would request a \u201cGang of Eight\u201d briefing, referring to a classified national security briefing for congressional leaders and Republican and Democratic leaders of the intelligence committees.
\nRelations between China and the United States have soured in recent years, particularly following then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s visit to Taiwan in August, which prompted dramatic Chinese military drills near the self-ruled island.
\nSince then, Washington and Beijing have sought to communicate more frequently and prevent ties from worsening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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