Republican Senator Tom Cotton called for Blinken to cancel his trip. "The level of espionage aimed at our country by Beijing has grown dramatically more intense & brazen over the last 5 years," Rubio said on Twitter. Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, said the spy balloon was alarming but not surprising. It was not clear how the discovery of the spy balloon might affect those plans. official said the balloon was assessed to have "limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective."īlinken is expected to travel to China next week for a visit agreed to in November by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. "We have communicated to them the seriousness with which we take this issue," a U.S. officials said they raised the matter with their Chinese counterparts through diplomatic channels. "China has no intention of violating the land territory and airspace of any sovereign country," Mao said. "I would like to emphasize that until the facts are clarified, speculation and hype will not be helpful to the proper resolution of the issue," she told a regular daily briefing in Beijing on Friday, adding that China abides by international law. "The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground."Ĭhinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing was "verifying" the situation. "The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now," Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told reporters. The news initially broke as CIA Director William Burns was speaking at an event at Washington’s Georgetown University, where he called China the "biggest geopolitical challenge" facing the United States. Separately, Canada's defense ministry said a "high-altitude surveillance balloon" was detected and that it was monitoring a "potential second incident", without giving further details, adding that it was in frequent contact with the United States. military aircraft, one of the officials told reporters on condition of anonymity. airspace and had observed it with piloted U.S. The United States took "custody" of the balloon when it entered U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.įighter jets were mobilized, but military leaders advised President Joe Biden against shooting the balloon out of the sky for fear debris could pose a safety threat, advice Biden accepted, U.S. officials said on Thursday, in what would be a brazen act just days ahead of a planned trip to Beijing by U.S. WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - A Chinese spy balloon has been flying over the United States for a couple of days, U.S.
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