China accused the United States and the tension increases
The plane had been flying over the United States for several days, raising tensions between Washington and Beijing, before it was struck down over the Atlantic by a missile fired from an F-22 jet on Saturday, Pentagon officials said.
President Joe Biden congratulated the F-22 pilots. “Today’s deliberate and lawful action demonstrates that President Biden and his national security team will always put the security of the American people first and will respond effectively to the PRC’s unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” the secretary said. of Defence, Lloyd Austin.
The balloon “it was used by the People’s Republic of China in an attempt to police strategic sites” of the United States, he added.
US officials first said Thursday that they were tracking a huge Chinese “surveillance balloon” in the sky over the United States.
The news about the balloon led Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a rare trip to Beijing to contain rising tensions between the two countries.
His visit to China would have been the first by a US secretary of state since October 2018 and would have come as the two superpowers are trying to prevent tensions from escalating into open conflict.
China later claimed to have asked Washington “to properly handle the situation in a calm, professional and moderate manner.”
The operation that collapsed the globe
In videos broadcast on television networks yesterdaythe balloon appeared to fall vertically after an impact. At the time it was shot down, it was about 18 kilometers above sea level, about 11 kilometers from the coast, according to Pentagon officials.
“After careful analysis, U.S. military commanders determined that shooting down the balloon while above the ground posed an unreasonable risk to people…due to the size and altitude of the balloon and its surveillance payload,” the statement said. Defense Minister.
That is why the Army waited to be able to shoot it down “safely over our territorial waters, closely monitoring its path and information gathering activities.”
China admitted on Friday that the balloon seen over the United States was indeed a Chinese device, but that it was “a civil aircraft, used for research purposes, mainly meteorological.” that due to the winds, “it deviated from its trajectory,” according to a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
According to Washington, the balloon was flying above commercial air traffic and posed “no military or physical threat to people on the ground.” But he refused to specify whether the device was moved by the wind or in a controlled manner.
It is not the first time that the US military has registered an intrusion of this type, but this aircraft remained longer than others in US airspace.
Without giving details, Canada spoke Friday of “a possible second incident” after Washington announced the presence of the first balloon.
The Pentagon said on Friday that a second Chinese “surveillance” balloon had been detected over Latin America.
Source: Ambito
