Washington: The US military on Saturday shot down the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had traversed across its continental territory over the Atlantic, a week after it first entered US space and a day after secretary of state Antony Blinken postponed his visit to China. America had called the intrusion an unacceptable violation of its sovereignty and said that the balloon was aimed to collect sensitive data about US military sites.
Beijing protested the downing and said it reserves the right for any necessary reaction. It said the US violated international practices after an accidental incursion of the balloon that was for civilian use.
An F22 Raptor blasted the balloon at 2:39pm with an AiM-9X Sidewinder missile off South Carolina from an altitude of 58,000 feet. The balloon was, at the time, between 60,000 and 65,000 feet. US Navy and Coast Guard personnel collected the remains, which fell 47 feet deep into the ocean, according to a statement. The debris was taken to a Federal Bureau of Investigation lab in Virginia’s Quantico for further analysis.
President Joe Biden said on Saturday that when he had been briefed on the balloon on Wednesday, he had ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down “as soon as possible” without doing damage to anyone on the ground.
“They decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water within the 12-mile (19km) limit. They successfully took it down and I want to compliment our aviators who did it…I told them to shoot it down.”
In a statement, secretary of defence Lloyd Austin said, “The balloon, which was being used by the PRC in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above US territorial waters.”
The action was taken in coordination with Canada, which helped track the balloon’s path over its territory in recent days.
China, which had first claimed that the airship was aimed to collect meteorological data and it had strayed off course, termed the US action to shoot it down an “overreaction”. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and protest against the US’s use of force to attack civilian unmanned aircraft,” a statement from its ministry of foreign affairs said. China also said that it “reserves the right” to take “further responses”.
The disclosure of the surveillance balloon triggered a domestic political debate in the US, with Republicans accusing the Biden administration of failing to stop its entry into US airspace and demanding that it be shot down.
In his statement, Austin confirmed that Biden, on Wednesday, had authorised taking down the surveillance balloon as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives.
“After careful analysis, US military commanders had determined downing the balloon while over land posed an undue risk to people across a wide area due to the size and altitude of the balloon and its surveillance payload. In accordance with the President’s direction, the department of defence developed options to take down the balloon safely over our territorial waters, while closely monitoring its path and intelligence collection activities.”
According to a column in The Washington Post, based on a briefing by a Pentagon official, the US believes that five Chinese gallops have circumnavigated the globe and China has conducted 20 to 30 balloon missions in the past decade. In this case, the US believes that the balloon’s voyage was ultimately more beneficial to US than China.
“By waiting until the balloon was over US territorial waters, the Biden administration was able to maximize the likelihood that the (intelligence-collection) pod could be recovered while minimising the risk that Americans would be injured by falling debris,” reported the Post.
The discovery of the balloon and the ensuing controversy have paused attempts to enhance US-China engagement, a process that had started with President Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping’s meeting in Bali at the end of last year.
While acknowledging the competition with China and expressing concerns over its actions, the US, in an attempt to institute “guardrails” and ensure that the strategic competition did not descend into conflict, had agreed to sustained diplomatic engagement. Blinken’s proposed visit to Beijing this week was a part of that effort, but the balloon made it politically untenable for him to continue with the visit. While the state department has been careful to emphasise that this is a postponement of the visit, observers suggest that given the public outrage in the US against China’s action, the mistrust in Washington DC about Beijing will only grow.
