US, Canada tracking suspected Chinese spy balloon

(Update 1: Adds statement from Canada, changes head, dateline, lede, minor edits)

Washington/Toronto, Feb 3 (EFE).- The United States and Canada are tracking a suspected Chinese spy balloon flying over the US at high altitude, their respective governments said late Thursday, with Washington deciding against shooting it down.

“The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now,” Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said in a statement.

Canada was also actively tracking the balloon and “taking steps to ensure the security of its airspace, including the monitoring of a potential second incident,” its Department of National Defense said in a statement, but did not elaborate on what the second incident might be.

The balloon is flying at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not pose a threat to civil aviation, Ryder said. On Wednesday it was seen over the northwestern state of Montana.

Once the balloon was detected, the US government “acted immediately” to protect itself against the collection of sensitive information by China, Ryder said, noting that this is not the first time that the authorities have detected such a balloon.

A high-ranking US defense official said in the statement that the country’s intelligence community has “very high confidence” the balloon belongs to China and that they have engaged with Chinese officials on the matter.

“We have communicated to them the seriousness with which we take this issue,” the official said. “We have made clear we will do whatever is necessary to protect our people and our homeland.”

Senior defense officials recommended against shooting the object down due to risk to people on the ground and the relatively low risk to security it poses.

“Currently, we assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collective collection perspective,” the official said added. “We did assess that it was large enough to cause damage from the debris field if we downed it over an area (…) I can’t really go into the dimension – but there have been reports of pilots seeing this thing, even though it’s pretty high up in the sky. So … it’s sizable.”

Canada’s intelligence agencies were working with the US and taking “all necessary measures to safeguard Canada’s sensitive information from foreign intelligence threats,” it added.

The announcement comes ahead of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s a two-day visit to China on Sunday, the first trip by a US foreign minister to the country since 2018. EFE

ssa-tw