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The Biden administration was on Saturday considering a plan to shoot down a large Chinese balloon suspected of conducting surveillance on the American military, according to four US officials.
The aim would be to bring it down once it is above the Atlantic Ocean, where the remnants could be recovered.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it was unclear if a final decision had yet been made by President Joe Biden.
In a brief remark on Saturday in response to a reporter’s question about the balloon, Biden said: “We’re going to take care of it.”
The balloon was spotted Saturday morning over North Carolina as it neared the Atlantic coast.
Shortly after Biden made his “taking care of it” remark, the US Federal Aviation Administration said it had paused arrivals and departures to three airports in South Carolina and North Carolina “a national security effort” from the defense department.
Biden had been inclined to down the balloon over land when he was first briefed on it on Tuesday, but Pentagon officials advised against it, warning that the potential risk to people on the ground outweighed the assessment of potential Chinese intelligence gains.
Earlier on Saturday, China had played down the cancellation of a visit by US secretary of state Antony Blinken after a large Chinese balloon suspected of conducting surveillance on US military sites roiled diplomatic relations, saying that neither side had formally announced any such plan.
“In actuality, the US and China have never announced any visit, the US making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Saturday morning.
Blinken was due to visit Beijing on Sunday for talks aimed at reducing US-China tensions, the first such high-profile trip after the countries’ leaders met last November in Indonesia.
But the US abruptly cancelled the trip after the discovery of the huge balloon despite China’s claim that it was merely a weather research “airship” that had blown off course.
The Pentagon rejected that out of hand – as well as China’s contention that the balloon was not being used for surveillance and had only limited navigational ability.
Uncensored reactions on the Chinese internet mirrored the official government stance that the US was hyping up the situation.
Many users made jokes about the balloon. Some said that since the US 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.”
Still others used it as a chance to poke fun at US defences, saying it couldn’t even defend against a balloon, and nationalist influencers leapt to use the news to mock the US. One wrote wryly: “The US, because of the balloon incident, delays Blinken’s visit to China.”
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Censorship was visible on the topic – the “wandering balloon” hashtag on Weibo was no longer searchable by Saturday evening.
“The US is hyping this as a national security threat posed by China to the US. This type of military threat, in actuality, we haven’t done this. And compared with the US military threat normally aimed at us, can you say it’s just little? Their surveillance planes, their submarines, their naval ships are all coming near our borders,” Chinese military expert Chen Haoyang of the Taihe Institute said on Phoenix TV, one of the major national TV outlets.
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The balloon was spotted earlier over Montana, which is home to one of America’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom air force base, defence officials said.
President Joe Biden had declined to shoot down the balloon, following advice of defence officials who worried the debris could injure people below. In a brief remark Saturday in response to a reporter’s question, Biden said: “We’re going to take care of it.”
Meanwhile, people with binoculars and telephoto lenses tried to find the “spy balloon” in the sky as it headed south-eastward over Kansas and Missouri at 60,000 feet (18,300 metres). It was spotted Saturday morning over North Carolina as it neared the Atlantic coast.
The Pentagon also acknowledged reports of a second balloon flying over Latin America. “We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,” Brig Gen Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a question 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 US 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.”
China has denied any claims of spying, and said it is a civilian-use balloon intended for meteorology research. Experts have said that their response was feasible.
But analysts said the unexpected incident will not help the strained ties between the two countries, and particularly China’s initial response where it said they could not control the balloon and “regretted” that it unintentionally entered US space.
On Saturday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs again emphasised that the balloon’s journey was out of its control and urged the US to not “smear” it based on the balloon.
Wang said China “has always strictly followed international law, we do not accept any groundless speculation and hype. Faced with unexpected situations, both parties need to keep calm, communicate in a timely manner, avoid misjudgments and manage differences.”
Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, said China’s apology did not appear sincere.
“In the meantime, the relationship will not improve in the near future … the gap is huge.”
