Republican lawmakers accused China of surveilling sensitive U.S. military sites with a suspected spy balloon and said the Biden administration had given Beijing an intelligence opening.
In this photo provided by Chad Fish, a large balloon drifts above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. The balloon was struck by a missile from an F-22 fighter just off Myrtle Beach, fascinating sky-watchers across a populous area known as the Grand Strand for its miles of beaches that draw retirees and vacationers.
U.S. defense and military officials said the balloon entered the U.S. air defense zone north of the Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28 and moved largely over land across Alaska and then into Canadian airspace in the Northwest Territories on Monday. It crossed back into U.S. territory over northern Idaho on Tuesday, the day the White House said President Joe Biden was first briefed on it.“It defies belief to suggest there was nowhere” between Alaska and the Carolinas where the U.S.
“The message they were trying to send is what they believe internally, and that is that the United States is a once great superpower that’s hollowed out, that’s in decline,” said Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “And the message they’re trying to send the world is, ‘Look, these guys can’t even do anything about a balloon flying over U.S. airspace.
On Thursday the Pentagon publicly exposed the balloon, and after that, “China maneuvered the balloon to leave the U.S.,” Schumer told reporters Sunday. A U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that the balloon changed course at that point.
He said “this really damages a relationship between us and China” and “puts a big dent in moving forward in a constructive way, which we really need to do.”
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