By comparison, the subsequent objects, which haven’t been attributed to a specific country or entity, are believed to be much smaller. Wang also repeated Beijing’s accusation that the US had flown balloons into Chinese airspace in the past – a claim that the White House has denied – and said he had “no information to provide” on potential Biden-Xi talks.įederal officials have said an initial Chinese surveillance balloon downed off the coast of South Carolina earlier this month was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations and had a payload around the size of three buses. “The US side overreacted and shot down the Chinese civilian uncrewed airship with excessive force, disregarding international laws and practices.” “The international practice already has relevant international laws and norms on civil aircraft,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a daily press briefing. “And I hope we are going to get to the bottom of this, but I make no apologies for taking down that balloon,” he added.Ĭhina on Friday said the US was “in no position to talk about establishing global norms” after Biden’s pledge to develop new rules for unidentified objects. The president said he expects to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the matter, along with keeping allies and Congress informed. Specifically, the administration will be establishing an improved inventory of unmanned airborne objects above American airspace, implementing further measures to detect the objects, update rules and regulations for encounters with these types of objects above US skies, and establishing common global norms for similar encounters. The president also said he’s directing national security adviser Jake Sullivan to lead a “government-wide effort” for how to address future encounters with similar high-altitude objects. The president said he has directed his team to devise “sharper rules for how we will deal with these unidentified objects moving forward, distinguishing between those that are likely to pose safety and security risks that necessitate action and those that do not.” Those classified parameters will be shared with Congress when they are finished. US intel assessing possibility that Chinese spy balloon's path over US was accidentalīiden emphasized that there hasn’t been evidence to suggest “a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky.” And although the most recent three objects appear to have been benign, Biden warned, “If any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the American people, I will take it down.” Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tyler Thompson) Petty Officer 1st Class Tyler Thompson/US Navy ![]() Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Feb. “The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research.”īiden’s White House speech to address the matter four days after the last known object was shot down comes after the president faced increasing pressure in Washington to be more transparent about the situation and his decision making as commander-in-chief. “We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were but nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country,” Biden said in his first formal remarks on the objects shot from the sky last weekend over Canada and the US. President Joe Biden on Thursday said that the United States has no indication that the three objects shot down in North American air space are tied to China’s spy balloon program and are likely from private entities.
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