Pentagon Says It Detected a Chinese Spy Balloon Hovering Over Montana
The revelation comes days before Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing, where he is expected to meet with President Xi Jinping.
WASHINGTON — The United States has detected what it says is a Chinese surveillance balloon that has been hovering over the northwestern United States, the Pentagon said on Thursday, a discovery that comes days before Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s visit to Beijing.
President Biden has chosen, for now, not to shoot down the balloon after a recommendation from Pentagon officials that doing so would risk debris hitting people on the ground, according to a senior defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The decision to publicize the discovery appears to put China on notice ahead of Mr. Blinken’s Beijing visit — the first by an American secretary of state in six years — during which he is expected to meet with President Xi Jinping. The sudden appearance of the balloon is bound to raise already escalating tensions between the two powers.
The official said that while it was not the first time China had sent spy balloons to the United States, this one has appeared to remain over the country for longer. Still, a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the balloon did not pose a military or physical threat and added that it had limited value in collecting intelligence. Another defense official said the Pentagon did not think that the balloon added much value over what China could glean through satellite imagery.
Pentagon officials said the balloon had traveled from China to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and through northwest Canada over the past few days before arriving somewhere over Montana, where it was hovering on Wednesday.
Canada’s Department of National Defense said in a brief statement late Thursday that the movements of a high-altitude surveillance balloon were being “actively tracked” by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is part of the U.S.-Canada military partnership. It added that the country’s intelligence agencies were working with American partners to “take all necessary measures to safeguard Canada’s sensitive information from foreign intelligence threats.”
“Canadians are safe, and Canada is taking steps to ensure the security of its airspace, including the monitoring of a potential second incident,” the statement said, without elaborating.
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