After shooting down a Chinese surveillance balloon in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolinaꦰ, the US has launche🅷d a mission to recover all the equipment from the debris while China expressed its strong dissatisfaction towards America's use of force against its civilian unmanned airship and warned of repercussions.
At the direction of President Joe Biden, the US military𒐪 at 2.39 pm EST shot down the Chinese surveillance balloon in the Atlantic Ocean, some six miles away from the US shores in South Carolina, with no damage to the life and properties of Americans, a senior defence official told reporters in Washington.
Fighter aircraft from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia inspired a single missile into the balloon causing it to crash into the ocean within the US territorial air𓆏space, said the official, addingꦓ that as of now there are no indications that any people including US military personnel, civilian aircraft or maritime vessels were harmed in any way.
“I told the🍰m to shoot it down,” Biden told reporters in Hagerstown, Maryland.
“On Wednesday, when I was briefed on the balloon, I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down as soon as possible. They decided -- without doing🅷 damage to anyone on the ground -- the best time to do that was as it got o𝓰ver water, outside within the 12-mile limit,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, Beijing reacting to the downing of the balloon expressed strong dissatisfaction and opposition towards the US use of force to attack China's civilian unmanned airship, state-run Xi⛄nhua news agency cited a st🔯atement from Chinese Foreign Ministry as saying on Sunday.
“The US insisting on the use of force is an obvious overreaction and a serious violation𓂃 of international practice. China will resolutely uphold the relevant company's legitimate rights and interests, at the same time, reserving the right to take further actions in response,”🥃 said the Foreign Ministry statement.
Defeꦆnce Secretary Lloyd Austin said that at the direction of President 🐲Biden, fighter aircraft assigned to US Northern Command successfully brought down the high altitude surveillance balloon launched by and belonging to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over the water off the coast of South Carolina in US airspace.
"The balloon, which wꦿas being used by theꦇ PRC in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above US territorial waters,” Austin said.
China has claimed that the ballꦏoon was merely a weather research “airship” that had been blown off course.
This action of downing of the balloon was taken in coordination, and with the full support, of the Canadia♏n government.
The Pentagon official told reporters soon thereafter that they took immediate steps to protect against the balloon's c🐻ollection of sensitive information mitigating its intelligence value to China.
By shooting down the balloon it addressed the surveillance threat posed to military installations and ༺further neutralise any intelligence value it could have produced, preventing it from returning to China.
“In addition, shooting the balloon down could enable the US to recover sensitive PRC equipment. While we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon collection of sensitive information of the surveillance෴ balloons overflight ꦅof US territory, which was of intelligence value to us,” the official said without divulging much of the information.
“I can't go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinise the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable. The Chinese officials have themselves acknowledged the high-altitude surveillance balloon which has bꦿeen useful to the People’s Republic of China,” said the official.
Now that the balloon has been shot dow♌n, focus has shif𒁃ted to the recovery mission, which is already underway.
Multiple vessels a🦋re on the spot along with the divers, to go down if needed. The US has also deployed unmanned vessels that can go down to get the structure and lift it back up on the recovery ship, 𓆉said the official.
FBI officials are also on 💯board as well, other counterintelligence authorities to be categorising and assessing the platform itself.
According to the second senior defence official, the Pentagon has been tracking this high altitude balloon for 🌼some time. It entered Alaska on January 28. It then entered into Canadian airspace on January 30 and re-entered US airspace over Northern Idaho on January 31.
“With confidence the high-altitude balloon was a PRC surveillance balloon. We assessed that it did not pose a threat at any time to civilian air traffic and because of the altitude of the balloons. We also assess it did not pose military or kinetic threat to US people or property on the ground, although we were constantly updating bo꧟th of those assessments and prepared to take it out if that 🌼threat profile changed,” said the official.
“We're also looking 𝔉at the intel value of the balloon throughout. We are going to learn more as we pick up the debris that was not likely to provide significant added value over and above other PRC intel capabilities such as satellites in low Earth orbit, for example,” said the official.
But nevertheless, this balloon was clearly crౠossing over sensitive sites, including sensitive military sites. As such, the Pentagon too🐟k additional precautions to make sure that whatever added intelligence value was minimised.
Through constant monitoring and surveillance, the US has learned technical things about this balloon and its surveillance capabilities. “I suspect if we are successful in recovering aspects of the debris we will learn even more,” said the official.
