american army A Chinese balloon was shot down on the east coast of the country on Saturday, hours after the incident, media reported. President Joe Biden promises to “take care” alleged spying device
(Read here: Spy balloon raid that further strained relations between the US and China)
In fact, the remains of the device fell into the sea and are being collected by US authorities, according to local media. Several witnesses cited by the media say they saw how the balloon was dropped.
(See also: Surveillance balloons: what they look like and why some countries use them for spying)
According to the testimony presented CNN According to a local photographer who saw what happened, several planes flew over the area and “a missile or similar device” crashed into the balloon.
The announcement came to light after Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder warned this Friday that another plane with the same specifications was flying over Latin America.
The attack of the balloon led the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, to suspend a tour scheduled for this Sunday in Beijing for Friday.
Three airports in the middle of the controversy United States of America They were closed on Saturday “national security reasons”It is in the midst of controversy caused by a spy balloon allegedly belonging to China in the sky, officials reported.
Arrivals and departures were stopped at three airports in the states. South Carolina and North Carolina “To support the Department of Defense in its national security efforts,” the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told AFP.
The discovery of these two devices, which Washington guaranteed to be surveillance, strained the already difficult relations between the two main world powers as they sought to reconcile positions.
visit Blinken to China This would be the first meeting by a US secretary of state since October 2018, and would signal a thaw after infighting in the administration of former Republican President Donald Trump.
Blinken said that they will continue to keep their communication channels open, while “the priority now is to ensure that this spy device leaves our airspace.”
Beijing denies it is a device designed for espionage. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs assured that it was a meteorological monitoring balloon that deviated from its orbit and expressed “regret” for an “involuntary” intervention.
However, Wang Yi, head of the Chinese diplomatic portfolio, said that “some politicians and the media in the US are using the incident as an excuse to attack and defame China.”
However, the Pentagon argues that it has no doubts that the plane originated in China and was used for espionage purposes.
According to US media, the balloon flew over the North Pacific Ocean and the Aleutian Islands in Canada before entering US airspace about two days ago. The plane flew specifically over the state of Montana, which is home to nuclear missile facilities and where warplanes are approaching, according to an anonymous Pentagon official.
The same source stated that it was decided not to drop the possible debris due to the risks it poses to people on the ground, and that the device’s ability to collect information is “limited”. But when the plane entered the Atlantic, the authorities decided to shoot it down.
The fact is that there is no more information about the balloon flying over Latin America. HE Pentagon only warned of its existence, and as of the close of this note, China has neither denied nor confirmed it.
But Costa Rica’s newspaper La Nación published an article on Friday about a white flying object resembling a hot air balloon seen over the Latin American country.
In any case, security experts have warned that these two balloons flying over America could be driven by advanced artificial intelligence technology, expert William Kim told the AFP agency.
Kim, a surveillance balloon expert at the Marathon Initiative group in Washington, explained that balloons are powerful surveillance tools that are difficult to knock down.
The expert, who is in dialogue with this institution, stated that with the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), it is now possible for a balloon to steer to reach a suitable point by simply changing the altitude and find a wind that pushes it towards the desired destination.
Previously, you had to guide it with a cable from the ground, or “throw it and go where the wind took it,” Kim said. “What has happened very recently with the advancement of artificial intelligence is that we can have a balloon (…) that no longer even needs its own means of propulsion. You can also control the direction by just controlling the altitude,” he said.
According to the analyst, these balloons have numerous advantages such as being able to evade the radar. “They are made of non-reflective materials, not metal. So although they can be quite large (…), they are difficult to detect”. If they are small enough, spying devices and payloads may go undetected.
Balloons also have the advantage of being able to maintain a fixed position over a target to be tracked, unlike spy satellites that must remain in orbit. “They can fly over the same location for months,” said the expert.
As to whether the balloon did indeed reach US soil by accident, Kim noted it was “a real possibility”. In fact, it could have been sent early to collect data outside the US borders or much higher before the Chinese bubble failed.
“These balloons don’t always work perfectly,” he said, noting that the Chinese device flies at an altitude of about 46,000 feet (about 14 kilometers) above the ground, the normal 65,000 to 100,000 (20 to 30.5 km) for this species. tool.
Kim warned that downloading such devices is not as easy as it seems.
“These balloons are powered by helium (…), you can’t shoot them to catch fire”, the expert explained. These are not exploding, exploding things,” he added. The expert recalled that in 1998, the Canadian Air Force sent an F-18 fighter jet to try to shoot down a meteorological balloon thought to be hostile.
“They loaded it with about 1,020mm rounds and it still took about six days to come down.” According to Kim, it is not at all clear that surface-to-air missiles will work against such balloons. In fact, guidance systems are designed to track fast targets.
However, the balloon’s passing over Montana, home to nuclear missile facilities, which is extremely valuable information for the United States, was a warning to the authorities.
In fact, local US media assures us that the use of these devices is often widespread, and that many of these incidents are ignored and never exceeded public opinion. But its entry into the continental United States rang alarm bells.
While this episode isn’t expected to result in a worsening of relations, this whole spy novel is a new chapter in the tension between Washington and Beijing.
Also for newspapers like The New York Times, the episode will also fuel Republican opposition and be another headache for Democratic president Joe Biden.
From now on, the US opposition is demanding strong action to protect the country’s security.
For now, a meteorological model from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has predicted that the balloon flying over US soil will leave the country between last night and tonight.
Two U.S. defense officials told CNN that the balloon is expected to reach the east coast and then sail southeast near the Carolinas.
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Source: Exame
