WASHINGTON — The United States shot down a Chinese spy balloon on Saturday that spent the last week traversing the country, an explosive end to a TV series. diplomatic crisis between two world powers on the TV screen in real time.
The balloon, which had spent five days traveling diagonally southeast from Idaho to the Carolinas, moved off the coast at midday Saturday and was shot down shortly after reaching the Atlantic.
“I told them to shoot it down,” President Biden told reporters in Hagerstown, Md., en route to Camp David on Saturday afternoon. “They told me to wait until the safest place to do it.”
That time and place was at 2:39 p.m., Pentagon officials said, about six miles off the coast of South Carolina. The Federal Aviation Administration has halted departures and arrivals at airports in Wilmington, NC, Myrtle Beach and Charleston in South Carolina. One of two F-22 fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base fired a Sidewinder air-to-air missile, bringing down the balloon that was flying between 60,000 and 65,000 feet. The F-22s were at 58,000 feet, with the support of other American fighters.
The Pentagon said Navy and Coast Guard personnel will conduct a recovery effort to retrieve debris from the balloon that landed in relatively shallow water. The US national security agencies hope the material they collect will add value to their databases of intelligence gathering on China.
China’s Foreign Ministry said it was “strongly displeased and opposed” to the US shooting down of the hot air balloon. In a statement, the ministry said that China had repeatedly told Washington that the balloon was a civilian aircraft that had accidentally flown over the United States and that its presence was “completely accidental”.
“In these circumstances, the United States’ resolute use of armed force is clearly an overreaction, a serious violation of international conventions,” the statement read. “China will resolutely protect the legitimate rights and interests of the relevant enterprises, and reserves the right to respond further.”
White House officials said the president was warned by the Pentagon on Tuesday that a spy balloon had entered continental U.S. airspace near Idaho, White House officials said, and asked for options. military. By Wednesday, the balloon was hovering over Montana and a full-blown diplomatic crisis was brewing, puncturing recent efforts in Washington and Beijing to lower US-China tension.
At the time, Pentagon officials advised against shooting down a balloon with an abdominal structure roughly the size of three buses, because of the potential for harm to civilians and infrastructure while it was in the air. land. Pentagon officials also said they do not consider the intelligence threat from the balloon to be greater than what China can gather from a satellite.
But the arrival — and extended stay — of the hot air balloon over U.S. territory prompted senior U.S. officials to send angry calls to their Chinese counterparts, criticism from Republican lawmakers, and on Friday the cancellation of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s visit to China. This will be the first trip by a Biden Cabinet secretary to Beijing. When announcing the cancellation of the trip, Mr. Blinken said the entry of the spy balloon was a “a clear violation of US sovereignty and international law.”
American officials have repeatedly communicated to Chinese officials in recent days that the US military can shoot down spy balloons. Blinken told a Chinese diplomat in Washington on Wednesday night that the US government has the right to take any action to protect its interests, and he said the same thing in a phone call on Wednesday. Six with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official. , a senior administration official said.
Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor and former senior director for Asia on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, said the incident highlights the dangers of accidents or miscalculations, as well as “the role of domestic politics in U.S. debates about China — and the role of Congress in explaining China’s strategic intentions, including by constraining China’s options.” government.”
Seven days in the sky of the United States
Pentagon officials say the spy balloon, which is controlled to some extent remotely by China but still dependent on jet streams for travel, has begun a controlled drift into US territory. on January 28, when it entered Alaskan airspace near the Aleutian Islands. For the first time, the trackers at the US Northern Command appear to be just another of China’s probes around the edges of the defensive US borders.
It happened before. Military officials say China has spy balloons in orbit around the world at 60,000 feet at any given time, and that the balloons occasionally stray into US territory. That has happened three times under the Trump administration and once before under the Biden administration, a senior defense official said.
Defense officials say spy balloons from China and other adversaries are sometimes classified by the Pentagon as unidentified aerial phenomena, including UFOs.
Officials said the most recent balloon, equipped with solar panels to power propulsion, cameras and surveillance technology, left the US territory on Monday and spent the day. in the Northwest Territories of Canada. But it returned to the United States on Tuesday after passing through northern Idaho, to the surprise of officials at Northern Command as well as at the Pentagon.
General Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Mr. Biden.
By Wednesday, as the balloon took to the skies over Billings, Mont., Pentagon officials were alarmed because the state is home to the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, one of three of its bases. United States Air Force operations and maintenance. intercontinental ballistic missile. A Pentagon official described shock at what officials see as a blatant and poorly concealed espionage effort. A senior Biden administration official called the move a bold move.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, who was in the Philippines at the time, convened a meeting on Wednesday of senior military and defense officials to consider military options, at the behest of the Defense Department. Mr. Biden. Generals Milley and Mr. Austin advised against shooting down the balloon while it was on land.
Nor did they warn the public, as officials at the Pentagon, White House, State Department and intelligence agencies discussed what to do. Mr. Blinken’s trip to China is expected to begin in a few days and the authorities have already made the decisions that need to be made.
State Department officials began intense discussions on Wednesday about whether Mr. Blinken should make the trip, a senior administration official said.
Later that day, Wendy Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, summoned a senior Chinese diplomat to the State Department, who arrived around 6:30 p.m. Ms. Sherman and Mr. Blinken told the official that his government’s espionage activities were unacceptable and asked Chinese officials to tell US officials to remove the balloon from US airspace.
Ms Sherman and Mr Blinken told the diplomat that the balloon would seriously affect Mr Blinken’s planned trip. Blinken also said the US has the right to act to protect its national interests, and alluded to the possibility of shooting down this machine.
In Beijing, US ambassador R. Nicholas Burns also told China’s foreign ministry that the Chinese government had to remove the balloon, officials said. Discussions continued behind closed doors.
But the balloon is hard to hide. By Wednesday afternoon, a witness reported leaving Montana and making a stop at the airport in Billings, Mont. At the same time, General Glen VanHerck, commander of Northern Command, abruptly canceled his lunch with reporters just 45 minutes before it began, arousing suspicion.
By Thursday afternoon, NBC’s Courtney Kube was report that the military is tracking a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon in Montana. A short time later, the Pentagon held a press conference confirming that report.
Biden administration officials said they planned to notify the public. “We took action to inform the public as quickly as possible about the facts regarding hot air balloons,” Brig said. General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary.
Some Republicans began to criticize the president for not ordering the balloon to be shot down immediately. They then turned to Mr. Blinken for not canceling his trip.
At a meeting Thursday night, Mr. Blinken, Mr. Austin, General Milley and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, decided that the trip made no sense, officials said. On Friday morning, Mr. Biden confirmed their decision.
China’s Foreign Ministry tried to salvage the situation by issuing a statement expressing regret and asserting that the balloon was a civilian machine that had gone astray. Mr. Blinken phoned Mr. Wang to tell him the trip had been canceled and to remind his government of what the US secretary called an “irresponsible act”.
On that day, the balloon flew over Kansas and headed for the South China Sea, partly aided by the jet stream. Pentagon officials were able to assess its expected course and plan to shoot it down when it reached the Atlantic. Officials wanted to do it while it was still in US airspace.
After the balloon first sighted Montana, several residents in its path took to social media promising that they would shoot it down themselves. The threats prompted the York County sheriff’s office in South Carolina on Saturday to post warning on Twitter: “Don’t try to shoot it!! Your rifle ammo WILL NOT reach it. In charge of. What goes up will go down, including your bullets.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs Contribution reports from Syracuse, NY, and Michael Crowley from Washington.
