Republican lawmakers on Sunday accused China of deliberately monitoring sensitive US military sites with a suspected spy balloon, saying the Biden administration had given Beijing an intelligence opening by not shooting down the balloon during its high-altitude drift. through US airspace.
The presence of the balloon in the sky over the US territory before a military plane shot it down in the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday with a missile, further strained relations between the two countries. The top US diplomat canceled a planned trip to Beijing and China’s defense minister said in a statement that after the balloon crashed off the coast of South Carolina that it “reserves the right to take the necessary measures to deal with to similar situations.”
“It is clear that this was an attempt by China to gather information, to defeat our command and control of our sensitive missile defense and nuclear weapons sites,” said Congressman Mike Turner, chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives. “And certainly, it is an urgency that this government does not recognize.”
US military and defense officials said the balloon entered the US air defense zone north of the Aleutian Islands on January 28 and drifted largely overland across Alaska. It subsequently entered Canadian airspace over the Northwest Territories on Monday. It re-entered US territory via northern Idaho on Tuesday, the day the White House said it was first reported to President Joe Biden.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said that “it is inconceivable to suggest that there was nowhere” between Alaska and the Carolinas where the United States could have safely shot down the balloon.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the upper house will receive a report on the balloon this month, including details about its surveillance capabilities, and that the government is considering action against the Chinese. for “his brazen activities.” He said the GOP criticism was political and premature, and that the United States had “sent a clear message to China that this is not acceptable.”
