On the 28th January a suspected Chinese Spy Balloon entered US airspace near the Aleutian Islands, before moving to Canadian airspace three days later, and re-entering the US on 31 January. The object was spotted in the US state of Montana, which is home to a number of sensitive nuclear missile sites. On the 4th February, the US shot it down. According to US officials, the balloon is about 200 feet (60 metres) tall, with a payload portion comparable in size to regional airliners and weighing hundreds or thousands of pounds. The Spy Balloon is a type of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is believed to have been developed and deployed by the Chinese government for surveillance purposes. The use of spy balloons has been a source of concern for many countries, including the United States. The U.S. military has raised concerns that the balloons may be used to gather intelligence on sensitive military installations, or even to carry out cyber attacks on critical infrastructure.
Chinese spy balloon shot down by US military fighter jets
The discovery of the balloon set off a diplomatic crisis between the US and China, with the US secretary calling it an ‘irresponsible act’ and China condoning ‘the excessive reaction that seriously violates international convention.’ In a statement that was made a few hours after the spy balloon was shot, the Chinese foreign ministry claimed it was a weather ship that accidentally entered U.S. airspace, saying :”The Chinese side has repeatedly informed the US side after verification that the airship is for civilian use and entered the US due to force majeure - it was completely an accident.” However, according to unnamed officials, such balloons were used to collect intelligence on strategically important territories, such as Japan, Taiwan, India and the Philippines.
Furthermore, as a result of this ’unacceptable violation of US sovereignty and international law’ the Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a visit to China, that was intended to help him and senior Chinese officials find some points of agreement amid significant differences over Taiwan, human rights, China’s claims in the South China Sea and Russia’s war in Ukraine. Following this news, China tried to play down the cancellation of his visit, saying in a statement on Saturday that neither side had formally announced a plan for a trip.
This spy balloon incident is not the first time that this has happened, according to senior defence sources this allegedly occurred three times under the Trump administration (which began in January 2017 and ended in January 2021) and once under the Biden administration, as part of a years-long Chinese global surveillance program, according to national security officials. ”It is something that they’ve been working on for many years, and that they have tried to improve … in terms of capability, range [and] communication,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters in a phone briefing on 6 February. However the previous flights were brief and nothing compared to last week’s. Analysts have also speculated that the large-scale balloons, which could be seen from above, were intended to test what a US response would be - and how the country’s own partisan battles would play out in the aftermath of such a provocation.
Just a few days ago, on the 5th February, former President Donald Trump criticised reports on Sunday about Chinese surveillance balloons that emerged during his administration, calling them ‘fake disinformation.’ That same day, Trump wrote on Truth Social: ‘The Chinese Balloon situation is a disgrace, just like the Afghanistan horror show, and everything else surrounding the grossly incompetent Biden Administration. They are only good at cheating in elections, and disinformation — and now they are putting out that a Balloon was put up by China during the Trump Administration, in order to take the “heat” off the slow moving Biden fools. China had too much respect for “TRUMP” for this to have happened, and it NEVER did. JUST FAKE DISINFORMATION!’ Moreover, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper told CNN on the 3rd February that he was ‘surprised’ by statements that similar incidents occurred during the Trump Administration. Robert O’Brien - who served as Mr Trump’s final national security adviser - also told The Wall Street Journal that he had no knowledge ‘of any incursions into US airspace’ prior to or during his time in office.
Additionally, just last Friday (03 February), a second Chinese spy balloon was spotted over Costa Rica and Venezuela, the Chinese government confirmed it on Monday 6th February, and added that it was for civilian purposes and was being used for flight tests. Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, said at a news conference on Monday that: ‘affected by the weather and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course and entered into the airspace of Latin America and the Caribbean.’ The Colombian Air Force said it tracked the object until it left the country's airspace, and that officials determined it did not pose a threat to national security and were looking into its origin. Ms. Mao said that the Chinese government had informed relevant officials in other nations about the balloon flying over Latin America and that “they have expressed their understanding.”
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