WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon said at midday Friday that a Chinese spy balloon had moved eastward and was over the central United States, and that the U.S. rejected China's claims that it was not being used for surveillance.
Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, refused to provide details on exactly where the balloon was or whether there was any new consideration of shooting it down. The military had ruled that option out, officials had said, due to potential risks to people on the ground.
Ryder said it was at an altitude of about 60,000 feet, was maneuverable and had changed course. He said it currently was posing no threat. He said there was only one balloon being tracked.
Earlier, the U.S. announced that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had postponed a planned high-stakes weekend diplomatic trip to China as the Biden administration weighed a broader response to the discovery of a high-altitude Chinese balloon flying over sensitive sites in the western United States.
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A high altitude balloon floats over Billings, Mont., on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023. The U.S. is tracking a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been spotted over U.S. airspace for a couple days, but the Pentagon decided not to shoot it down due to risks of harm for people on the ground, officials said Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023.
That abrupt decision came despite China's claim that the balloon was a weather research "airship" that had blown off course. The U.S. has described it as a surveillance vehicle.
The development came just before Blinken had been due to depart Washington for Beijing and marked a new blow to already strained U.S.-Chinese relations.
President Joe Biden declined to comment when questioned at an economic event. Two 2024 reelection challengers, former President Donald Trump, and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador, said the U.S. should immediately shoot down the balloon.
Discovery of the balloon was announced by Pentagon officials who said one of the places it was spotted was over the state of Montana, which is home to one of America's three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
A senior defense official said the U.S. prepared fighter jets, including F-22s, to shoot down the balloon if ordered. The Pentagon ultimately recommended against it, noting that even as the balloon was over a sparsely populated area of Montana, its size would create a debris field large enough that it could have put people at risk.
The official said the balloon was headed over the Montana missile fields, but the U.S. has assessed that it had only "limited" value in terms of providing intelligence China couldn't obtain by other technologies, such as spy satellites.
The discovery alarmed many in Washington across the country and, besides the U.S. protests lodged with Chinese officials, it attracted strong criticism of the administration from Republican members of Congress who have advocated taking a tougher stance with China.
China, which angrily denounces surveillance attempts by the U.S. and others over areas it considers to be its territory and once forced down an American spy plane, offered a generally muted reaction to the Pentagon announcement.
In a relatively conciliatory statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said late Friday that the balloon was a civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research. The ministry said the airship has limited "self-steering" capabilities and "deviated far from its planned course" because of winds.
"The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into U.S. airspace due to force majeure," the statement said, citing a legal term used to refer to events beyond one's control.
Blinken had been prepared as late as Thursday to travel to Beijing this weekend but the administration had begun to reconsider the trip following the discovery of the balloon on Wednesday, even before its presence was made public, an official said.
The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the administration had " noted" China's expression of regret.
Blinken's long-anticipated meetings with senior Chinese officials had been seen in both countries as a way to find some areas of common ground at a time of major disagreements over Taiwan, human rights, China's claims in the South China Sea, North Korea, Russia's war in Ukraine, trade policy and climate change.
Although the trip, which was agreed to in November by President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a summit in Indonesia, had not been formally announced, officials in both Beijing and Washington had been talking in recent days about Blinken's imminent arrival.
The meetings were to begin on Sunday and go through Monday.
Timeline: Chinese leader Xi Jinping's rise and rule
China's Xi Jinping expands power and promotes allies
Early years
June 15, 1953: Born in Beijing, the son of Xi Zhongxun, a senior Communist Party official and former guerrilla commander in the civil war that brought the communists to power in 1949.
1969-75: At the age of 15, Xi is among many educated urban youths sent to live and work in poor rural villages during the Cultural Revolution, a period of social upheaval launched by then-leader Mao Zedong.
1975-79: Returns to Beijing to study chemical engineering at prestigious Tsinghua University.
1979-82: Joins military as aide in Central Military Commission and Defense Ministry.
Regional leader
1982-85: Assigned as deputy and then leader of the Communist Party in Zhengding county, south of Beijing in Hebei province.
1985: Begins 17-year stint in coastal Fujian province, a manufacturing hub, as vice mayor of the city of Xiamen.
1987: Marries Peng Liyuan, a popular singer in the People’s Liberation Army’s song and dance troupe. They have one daughter. An earlier marriage for Xi fell apart after three years.
2000-2002: Governor of Fujian province.
2002: Transferred to neighboring Zhejiang province, where he is appointed party chief, a post that outranks governor in the Chinese system.
March 2007: Appointed party chief of Shanghai but stays only a few months.
October 2007: Joins national leadership as one of nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the top leadership of the Communist Party.
March 2008: Named vice president of China.
August 2011: Xi hosts then-Vice President Joe Biden on the latter's visit to China, nearly a decade before Biden becomes U.S. president.
National leader
November 2012: Replaces Chinese President Hu Jintao as general secretary of the Communist Party, the top party position.
March 2013: Starts first five-year term as president of China.
2013-2014: China begins reclaiming land in the South China Sea to build islands, some with runways and other infrastructure, pushing its territorial claims to disputed areas in the vital waterway.
2017: China launches a harsh crackdown on the Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the Xinjiang region after extremist attacks. Mass detentions and human rights abuses draw international condemnation and accusations of genocide.
October 2017: The party enshrines his ideology, known as “Xi Jinping Thought," in its constitution as he starts a second five-year term as leader. This symbolically elevates him to Mao's level as a leader whose ideology is identified by his name.
March 2018: China's legislature abolishes a two-term limit on the presidency, signaling Xi's desire to stay in power for more than 10 years.
July 2018: The United States, under President Donald Trump, imposes tariffs on Chinese imports, starting a trade war. China retaliates with tariffs on U.S. goods.
June-November 2019: Massive protests demanding greater democracy paralyze Hong Kong. Xi's government responds by imposing a national security law in mid-2020 that quashes dissent in the city.
January 2020: China locks down the city of Wuhan as a new virus sparks what will become the COVID-19 pandemic.
September 2020: Xi announces in a video speech to the U.N. General Assembly that China aims to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.
December 2020: Authorities announce an anti-monopoly investigation into e-commerce giant Alibaba, the start of a crackdown on China's high-flying tech companies.
August 2022: China launches missiles and deploys warships and fighter jets in major military exercises around Taiwan following the visit of a senior U.S. lawmaker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to the self-governing island that China claims as its territory.
October 2022: Xi starts a third five-year term as Communist Party leader, breaking with recent precedent that limited leaders to two terms.
