US President Joe Biden is being questioned for his slow response to the suspected Chinese spy balloon that was hovering in the US’ sky last week.
In the exclusive report published by the National Review, it was revealed that the Chinese spy balloon actually “floated over U.S. and Canadian airspace for eight days. The U.S. government tracked it for five days, and it said nothing until a Montana newspaper published pictures of it.”
In the transcript of the press conference which was led by an unnamed “senior defense official,” the suspected Chinese spy balloon reportedly “entered the Alaska Joint Operating Area on January 28th, having entered the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone north of the Aleutian Islands, and therefore passing into sovereign U.S. airspace. It then entered into Canadian airspace on January 30th, and re-entered U.S. airspace over northern Idaho on January 31st.”
However, the Chinese surveillance balloon was only shot down on Saturday.
During the briefing, the senior defense official claimed that “We were also looking at the intel value of the balloon,” adding that the assessment was that the balloon “was not likely to provide significant added — additive value over and above other PRC intel capabilities such as, you know, satellites in Low Earth Orbit, for example.”
In the statement released by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he claimed that “I don’t think the technology or the existence of these things is a great mystery.”
“I think what’s embedded here is a clear message. It’s not a coincidence that this happens leading up to the State of the Union address, leading up to [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken’s visit to China. The Chinese knew that this was going to be spotted. They knew that we were going to have to react to it. They flew it over military installations and sensitive sites across — right across the middle. I mean, look at the flight path of this thing. It’s a diagonal shot right through the middle of the continental United States.” Rubio added.
“And the message embedded in this to the world is, we can fly a balloon over airspace of the United States of America, and you won’t be able to do anything about it to stop us. They calculated this carefully with a message embedded in it. And I think that’s the part we can’t forget here. It’s not just the balloon. It’s the message to try to send the world that America — we can do whatever we want, and America can’t stop us,” he argued.
The controversy came as the Chinese Foreign Ministry slammed the US, claiming that the latter’s decision to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon was an “overreaction.”
According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Saturday, the Ministry claimed that “China strongly disapproves of and protests against the U.S. attack on a civilian unmanned airship by force.”
The ministry argued that “The US’ use of force is a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”
Moreover, despite allegations, the Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed that the airship was only a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes.”
