US Denies Beijing's Charge Of Flying Surveillance Balloons Over China: Report

The State Department called China's accusation "the latest example of China scrambling to do damage control".

This picture provided by the US Navy shows sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in the Atlantic Ocean on February 5, 2023. US President Joe Biden on February 6, 2023 defended the decision to wait until a Chinese balloon crossed the United States before shooting it down, and the White House said valuable intelligence was being culled from the device.

Source : AFP

The White House and the US State Department have rejected China's recent claims of the US sending surveillance balloons over China. National Security Council spokesperson, Adrienne Watson, said on Twitter that the claim is false and that it is actually China that has a high-altitude surveillance balloon programme for intelligence collection, which has been used to violate the sovereignty of over 40 countries across five continents.

The State Department called China's accusations "the latest example of China scrambling to do damage control" and emphasized that Beijing has repeatedly and wrongly claimed that a surveillance balloon it sent over the US was a weather balloon, and has failed to offer any credible explanations for its intrusion into US airspace and other countries.

This denial from the US is the latest development in an escalating espionage saga between the two superpowers. China hit back against US charges of balloon espionage by accusing the US of sending more than 10 balloons into its airspace since January 2022.

Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said China has "violated the sovereignty" of not just the United States but of countries across five continents. The charge came just days after US fighter jets shot down a Chinese balloon off the coast of South Carolina in the Atlantic Ocean. It hovered over continental America for several days after entering the US airspace on January 30 in Montana.

China acknowledged that the balloon was theirs but denied that it was for surveillance purposes. Rather it was for weather monitoring and that it had drifted off course, Beijing said.

The US military has shot down three unidentified objects over North America recently, sparking widespread jitters and speculation about their origins Only the first object has been officially attributed to China, with Beijing insisting that it was a civilian craft that had blown off course.

White House spokesman, John Kirby, stated that US authorities haven't been able to access the latest three objects shot down due to weather conditions that have slowed down search and recovery operations.

The escalating tensions between the US and China, particularly over espionage and intelligence gathering, have caused concern among the international community.