Ihe Pentagon is monitoring a Chinese spy balloon flying over United States territory, a senior US defense official said Thursday. At the request of President Joe Biden, the Pentagon considered shooting him down, but the decision was made not to because of potential risks to those on the ground, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We have no doubt that the ball is from China,” he said. “We are taking steps to protect ourselves against the collection of sensitive information,” he said, while insisting on “the limited added value in terms of information collection” of the device, described as a balloon with fairly large dimensions.
“No military or physical threat to people on the ground”
“We considered it to be large enough for the debris to cause damage” if it was shot down in a populated area, according to the same source. Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said the United States and Canada Aerospace Defense Command (Norad), based in Colorado (west), was monitoring the path of the balloon. “The balloon is currently flying at an altitude well above commercial air traffic. It poses no military or physical threat to people on the ground,” he said in a statement.
“Canadians are safe and Canada is taking steps to ensure the security of its airspace, including monitoring for a potential second incident,” Canada’s Department of Defense said in a statement. more details on this possible second ball.
Canada did not refer to China. “Canada’s intelligence agencies are working with their American partners and continue to take all necessary measures to protect Canada’s sensitive information against threats from foreign intelligence services,” the ministry said.
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“Sensitive sites” flown over
“Clearly, this balloon is intended for surveillance and its current trajectory takes it over sensitive sites”, including air bases and strategic missile silos, said the first American official, referring to the state of Montana, in the western United States. The balloon entered US airspace “several days ago”, but intelligence services were already monitoring it, the same source said, adding that it was not the first time that the American army noticed such an intrusion. This time the balloon remained in United States airspace much longer.
Made aware, the American president immediately asked his Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, who was in the Philippines on Wednesday, to provide him with options. The latter then held discussions with the chiefs of staff of the Pentagon. Fighter jets approached the craft over Montana, according to the same source.
The incident comes a few days before a trip by the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken to China to try to ease tensions with the Asian giant. Among the many contentious issues are Taiwan, which China claims as an integral part of its territory, and China’s activities in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, Lloyd Austin has signed agreements aimed at strengthening the American military presence there in the face of the rise of China. Washington raised the balloon incident with Chinese authorities.
“We communicated to them the seriousness of the incident,” the US official said, adding, “We made it clear to them that we will do whatever is necessary to protect our people in our territory. »
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Beijing had not officially reacted on Friday at the start of the afternoon. But the newspaper GlobalTimesfunded by the Chinese Communist Party but not an official body, mocked the incident.
“The ball itself is a big target,” tweeted the GlobalTimes. “If balloons from other countries can truly enter the continental United States unhindered, or even enter the skies over certain states, that only proves that the United States air defense system is not is only there to look pretty and is not trustworthy. “, he quipped.
Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy on Thursday evening denounced a “destabilizing action” by a China that “shamelessly disregards the sovereignty of the United States”. He called on Joe Biden to “not stay silent” and asked that members of Congress be briefed.