WASHINGTON (AP) – The Biden administration is considering plans to shoot down a large Chinese-made balloon suspected of cracking down on U.S. forces over the Atlantic Ocean, and the wreckage will be recovered, according to four U.S. officials. there is a possibility.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified operation, said it was unclear whether the final decision was made by President Joe Biden. He said:
“We will deal with it.”
The balloon was spotted Saturday morning over the Carolinas approaching the Atlantic coast.
Biden had tended to dismantle the balloon overland when first briefed on Tuesday, but Pentagon officials said the potential risk to people on the ground was an assessment of potential Chinese intelligence operations.
The official unveiling of the balloon this week canceled Sunday’s planned visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Anthony Brinken for talks to ease tensions between the United States and China. The Chinese government tried to downplay Saturday’s cancellation.
China continues to insist that the balloon is just a meteorological research ‘airship’ off course. The Pentagon flatly denied that, just as China claimed it was not for surveillance purposes and had limited navigational capabilities.
The balloon was spotted over Montana, where the US has three nuclear missiles, one of which is his silo his field at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
Meanwhile, people with binoculars and telephoto lenses tried to spot a “spy balloon” in the sky as he flew 60,000 feet (18,300 meters) southeast through Kansas and Missouri. The Pentagon also confirmed reports of a second balloon flying over Latin America. “We understand that this is another Chinese surveillance balloon,” Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder said in a statement.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to questions about the second balloon.
Blinken, who had been due to depart Washington for Beijing late Friday, said he had told senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in a phone call that sending the balloon over the U.S. was “an irresponsible act and that (China’s) decision to take this action on the eve of my visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have.”
Uncensored reactions on the Chinese internet mirrored the official government stance that the U.S. was hyping the situation.
Many users made jokes about the balloon. Some said that since the U.S. had put restrictions on the technology that China is able to buy to weaken the Chinese tech industry, they couldn’t control the balloon.
Others called it the “wandering balloon” in a pun that refers to the newly released Chinese sci-fi film called “The Wandering Earth 2.” In a sign of censorship, the “wandering balloon” hashtag on Weibo was no longer searchable by Saturday evening.
Still others used it as a chance to poke fun at U.S. defenses, saying it couldn’t even defend against a balloon, and nationalist influencers leapt to use the news to mock the U.S.
