Over the weekend, an American surveillance balloon presumed to be Chinese was shot down. About the U.S. and Chinese responses to the incident, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. On January 28, the Chinese balloon crossed into American airspace over Alaska. At the time, American officials believed it would pass over sparsely populated areas. However, the balloon decelerated after two days over Canada and proceeded southward, in the direction of the American state of Idaho. The U.S. official stated to Reuters, “We knew this was different at that point.” Other Chinese balloons had at least four brief instances of entering American airspace, according to U.S. military authorities. thrice under the previous president Donald Trump’s administration and once prior to that during President Joe Biden’s terms.
The balloon passed over the intercontinental ballistic missile silos at Malmstrom Air Force Base in western Montana last Wednesday. Officials from the US military prepared to shoot the balloon down. However, because the massive balloon’s debris would have spread over an 11-kilometer radius, endangering people and property, the United States decided not to take action. The balloon continued its journey close to additional critical U.S. military locations, such as the B-2 bomber airbase of the Air Force in Missouri and the U.S. Strategic Command in Nebraska.
The balloon was able to remain over some locations undisturbed by winds, a U.S. official told Reuters. “We observed it doing that…It turned left and right. It moved through the jet stream in front of us. That was the way it was functioning. U.S. officials acknowledged that the balloon was over American airspace following reports of it from the general public. Additionally, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his scheduled diplomatic visit to China for the weekend. The Chinese foreign ministry claimed in a statement last Friday that the balloon was a civilian airship that was mostly utilized for meteorological research. The blimp deviated “far from its planned course” due to wind, according to the ministry, and had limited “self-steering” capabilities.
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