Is weather device: China regrets ‘spy’ balloon entering American airspace
2 min read . Updated: 09 Feb 2023, 10:18 PM IST
Premium- Earlier, Pentagon claimed that it was a Chinese surveillance balloon
Responding to the US's allegation that China has sent a surveillance balloon over American airspace, Beijing on Friday responded by saying it was for weather research and was pushed by the wind and that it regrets that the airship strayed.
In a statement late Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the balloon a was civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research. The ministry said the airship has limited steering capabilities and “deviated far from its planned course" because of winds.
On Thursday, a senior American defense official told Pentagon reporters that the U.S. has “very high confidence" that the object spotted over U.S. airspace in recent days was a Chinese high-altitude balloon and that it was flying over sensitive sites to collect information. One of the places the balloon was spotted was Montana, which is home to one of the nation’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
The defense official said the U.S. has assessed that the balloon has “limited" value in terms of providing intelligence that couldn’t be obtained by other technologies, such as spy satellites.
The Pentagon decided not to shoot down the balloon, which was potentially flying over sensitive sites, because of concerns of hurting people on the ground.
The news came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected to make his first trip to Beijing this weekend. The visit has not been formally announced, and it was not immediately clear if the balloon's discovery would affect his travel plans. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said she had no information on the trip.
Blinken would be the highest-ranking member of President Joe Biden’s administration to visit China, on a mission to mitigate a sharp downturn in relations between the countries amid trade disputes and concerns about Beijing’s increasingly aggressive stance toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
Tensions with China are particularly high on numerous issues, ranging from Taiwan and the South China Sea to human rights in China’s western Xinjiang region and the clampdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong. Not least on that list of irritants are China’s tacit support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its refusal to rein in North Korea’s expanding ballistic missile program and ongoing disputes over trade and technology.
On Tuesday, Taiwan scrambled fighter jets, put its navy on alert and activated missile systems in response to nearby operations by 34 Chinese military aircraft and nine warships that are part Beijing’s strategy to unsettle and intimidate the self-governing island democracy.
Twenty of those aircraft crossed the central line in the Taiwan Strait that has long been an unofficial buffer zone between the two sides, which separated during a civil war in 1949.
Beijing has also increased preparations for a potential blockade or military action against Taiwan, which has stirred increasing concern among military leaders, diplomats and elected officials in the U.S., Taiwan’s key ally.
