SHANGHAI: Beijing on Sunday (Feb 5) blasted the Pentagon’s decision to shoot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon spotted flying over North America, accusing the United States of “clearly overreacting and seriously violating international practice”.
“China expresses strong dissatisfaction and protests against the use of force by the United States to attack the unmanned civilian airship,” Beijing’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that it would “reserve the right to make further necessary responses”.
A US military fighter jet shot down the airship, which Washington has described as a suspected Chinese spy balloon, off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, a week after it entered US airspace and triggered a dramatic – and public – spying saga that worsened Sino-US relations.
The balloon was shot down about six nautical miles off the US coast, over relatively shallow water, potentially aiding efforts to recover key elements of the Chinese surveillance equipment among the debris in the coming days, officials said.
US President Joe Biden issued an order on Wednesday to take down the balloon, but the Pentagon had recommended waiting until it could be done over open water to safeguard civilians from debris crashing down to Earth from thousands of feet above commercial air traffic.
According to a senior US military official, an F-22 fighter jet took the shot at 2.39pm using a single AIM-9X supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the balloon, which first entered US airspace on Jan 28, was being used by China “in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States”.