The United States has shot down the Chinese spy balloon that has traveled across the country over the last week.
“This afternoon, at the direction of President Biden, U.S. fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command successfully brought down the high altitude surveillance balloon launched by and belonging to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over the water off the coast of South Carolina in U.S. airspace,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Saturday. “The balloon, which was being used by the PRC in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above U.S. territorial waters.”
The balloon has been taken down pic.twitter.com/H0brBIzZky
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 4, 2023
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The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop and cleared airspace around three airports on Saturday shortly after 1 p.m. The announcement came amid reports the U.S. was planning on shooting down the craft once it was over the Atlantic Ocean.
President Joe Biden was briefed on the balloon coming over the mainland U.S. on Tuesday, though there was no announcement about the craft until Thursday evening.
Shortly after the balloon’s presence was made public, Republican officials began making calls for Biden to order the craft shot down.
Military officials considered shooting the craft down before Saturday. However, due to the estimated size of the balloon, roughly three bus-lengths, and the possibility of damage to people and property on the ground, they determined it would not have been safe.
Chinese officials have insisted the balloon was being used to gather meteorological information and it had been blown off course. The balloon is believed to have traveled over the Alaskan Aleutian Islands, through Canada, eventually over the continental U.S.
Pentagon officials have rebutted Chinese claims about the intentions of the balloon, saying they “know that it’s a surveillance balloon.”
“And I’m not going to be able to be more specific than that,” Department of Defense spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters on Friday. “We do know that the balloon has violated U.S. airspace and international law, which is unacceptable. And so we’ve conveyed this directly to the PRC at multiple levels,” he told reporters.
While the balloon’s presence in U.S. airspace was a violation of international law, Ryder insisted that it did not pose any physical threat to the country or its citizens.
The balloons presence over the U.S. disrupted diplomatic business, forcing Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone indefinitely his trip to Beijing that was scheduled for next week.
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“The secretary was prepared to depart for Beijing tonight to take on a wide-ranging agenda that would have encompassed all elements of the relationship,” a senior State Department official told reporters in a telephone briefing Friday. “We have noted the PRC’s statement of regret, but the presence of this balloon in our airspace is a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law, and it is unacceptable that this has occurred. After consultations with our interagency partners as well as with Congress, we have concluded that the conditions are not right at this moment for Secretary Blinken to travel to China.”
The Pentagon confirmed it identified a second spy balloon it believed belonged to China making its way through Latin America.
