{"id":145830,"date":"2023-02-03T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=913163"},"modified":"2023-02-03T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T00:00:00","slug":"pentagon-tracking-chinese-spy-balloon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/02\/03\/pentagon-tracking-chinese-spy-balloon\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon tracking Chinese spy balloon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

The Pentagon said Thursday it was tracking a Chinese spy balloon flying high over the United States, reviving tensions between the two countries just days ahead of a rare visit to Beijing by the top US diplomat.
\nAt President Joe Biden\u2019s request, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and top military officials considered shooting the balloon down but decided doing so would endanger too many people on the ground, a senior defense official told reporters Thursday.
\n\u201cClearly, the intent of this balloon is for surveillance,\u201d said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
\nThe official added that the balloon had flown over the northwest United States, where there are sensitive airbases and nuclear missiles in underground silos, but that the Pentagon did not believe it constituted a particularly dangerous intelligence threat.
\n\u201cWe assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective,\u201d the official said.
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\nChina said on Friday it was working to verify the facts around US claims that Beijing flew a spy balloon over its territory, warning against \u201chype\u201d over the issue.
\n\u201cVerification is under way\u201d over the reports, foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular briefing, adding that \u201cuntil the facts are clear, making conjectures and hyping up the issue will not help to properly resolve it.\u201d
\n\u201cChina is a responsible country and always abides strictly by international law. We have no intention of violating the territory or airspace of any sovereign country,\u201d she said.
\n\u201c(We) hope that both sides will handle (the situation) with mutual calm and prudence,\u201d she added.
\nThe discovery of the aircraft comes just days before an expected visit to China by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with managing heightened tensions between the two powers at the top of the agenda.
\nBlinken\u2019s visit to Beijing, which follows a meeting last November between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit, will be the first trip to the Asian country by the United States\u2019 top diplomat since 2018.
\nIn addition to ongoing disputes over trade and intellectual property, relations between the two countries have frayed, particularly over democratically-governed Taiwan, which China has pledged to reunite with the mainland. AFP
\nThe United States has been selling arms to Taiwan to defend itself, and Biden has said Washington would help protect the island if China attacked.
\nThe defense official said that the balloon entered US airspace \u201ca couple days ago,\u201d but that American intelligence had been tracking it well before that.
\nAustin, who was in the Philippines, held discussions Wednesday with top Pentagon officials after Biden asked about options for dealing with the balloon.
\nFighter jets were flown to examine it while it was above Montana as discussions took place.
\nBut the Pentagon decision was \u201cnot to take kinetic action due to the risk to safety and security of people on the ground from the possible debris field,\u201d the official said.
\nPentagon spokesman Pat Ryder confirmed the balloon was still being tracked over US airspace.
\n\u201cThe balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic. It does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,\u201d Ryder said in a statement.
\nCanada\u2019s defense department said late Thursday it was working with the United States to track a balloon, while signaling there could be other surveillance activities.
\n\u201cCanadians are safe and Canada is taking steps to ensure the security of its airspace, including the monitoring of a potential second incident,\u201d the department said, without giving further details or mentioning China.
\nBeijing has sent surveillance balloons over the United States in the past.
\nHowever, this one has lingered in US airspace much longer, the senior US defense official said.
\n\u201cWe are taking steps nevertheless to protect against foreign intelligence collection of sensitive information,\u201d the official said.
\nAustin was in the Philippines this week to strengthen US defense cooperation, including gaining wider access for Pentagon forces at Philippine military bases, in a move that highlights the US view of China as a threat to East Asia.
\nThe defense official said \u201cthe seriousness of the issue\u201d with the balloon had been raised with Beijing officials.
\n\u201cWe have made clear we will do whatever is necessary to protect our people in our own land.\u201d
\nChina offered no immediate comment on the issue.
\nTensions over Taiwan reached a furor last year when Nancy Pelosi, then-speaker of the US House of Representatives, chose to visit the island.
\nAfter Republicans gained control of the chamber in January, questions have been raised over whether her successor will make a similar trip.
\n\u201cChina\u2019s brazen disregard for US sovereignty is a destabilizing action that must be addressed, and President Biden cannot be silent,\u201d current Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted Thursday evening.
\nPlease enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pentagon said Thursday it was tracking a Chinese spy balloon flying high over the United States, reviving tensions between the two countries just days ahead of a rare visit to Beijing by the top US diplomat.
\nAt President Joe Biden\u2019s request, Defen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[413,65,692,144,194,64,484],"tags":[10320,3472,3610,3929,10315,2240,10329,8399,10336,2972],"class_list":["post-145830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advertising","category-beijing","category-canada","category-china","category-news-chinese-law","category-taiwan","category-united-states","tag-biden","tag-chinese","tag-diplomacy","tag-espionage","tag-media-intelligence","tag-military","tag-philippines","tag-spy","tag-washington","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145831,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145830\/revisions\/145831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}