US Seeks to Deflate Chinese Balloon Worries

FILED - 04 February 2023, US, Myrtle Beach: Chinese spy balloon is pictured shortly before it was shot down by an F22 military fighter jet over Surfside Beach in South Carolina. Photo: Joe Granita/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
FILED - 04 February 2023, US, Myrtle Beach: Chinese spy balloon is pictured shortly before it was shot down by an F22 military fighter jet over Surfside Beach in South Carolina. Photo: Joe Granita/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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US Seeks to Deflate Chinese Balloon Worries

FILED - 04 February 2023, US, Myrtle Beach: Chinese spy balloon is pictured shortly before it was shot down by an F22 military fighter jet over Surfside Beach in South Carolina. Photo: Joe Granita/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
FILED - 04 February 2023, US, Myrtle Beach: Chinese spy balloon is pictured shortly before it was shot down by an F22 military fighter jet over Surfside Beach in South Carolina. Photo: Joe Granita/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

The White House sought Tuesday to take the air out of an escalating diplomatic crisis with Beijing, saying that preliminary evidence suggests three unidentified aerial objects shot down by US jets were not involved in a broader Chinese spy balloon program.

The United States has been in a state of alarm since a huge white balloon from China was spotted tracking over a series of top secret nuclear weapons sites, before being shot down just off the east coast on February 4, said AFP.

In the wake of the incident, the US military adjusted radar settings to detect smaller objects and promptly discovered three more unidentified craft that President Joe Biden ordered shot down -- one over Alaska, another over Canada and the third over Lake Huron off Michigan.

US authorities "haven't seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of (China's) spy balloon program or that they were definitely involved in external intelligence," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

With Congress, the media and the public speculating over everything from a coordinated Chinese spying offensive to aliens, officials are now stressing that the three new objects appear to be neither Chinese nor involved in spying.

Kirby said they "could be balloons that were simply tied to commercial or research entities and therefore benign."

That "could emerge as a leading explanation here," he said.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged that the ownership of the three objects remains unknown but "we do want to make sure that the Americans, American people, understand that there's no need to panic."

Beijing denies it uses spy balloons and says the huge craft shot down off the coast February 4 was for weather research, while another spotted over South America was for pilot training.

On Monday, Chinese authorities upped the ante by accusing Washington of sending its own spy balloons over their territory -- something US officials deny.

The spat has already inflicted diplomatic damage between the rival superpowers, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken abruptly canceling a rare visit to Beijing.

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Kirby stressed that China is running a "well funded, deliberate program" to use high-altitude, hard-to-detect balloons for spying on the United States and other countries.

But whether the three latest objects downed were part of that will not be definitively known until the debris is analyzed -- and that is taking more time than US authorities would like.

"It will certainly help us hone in on that if and when we can get the debris," Kirby said.

But due to "pretty tough" weather and geographical conditions in all three cases, "we're recognizing that it could be some time before we locate and recover the debris," Kirby said. "We haven't found them yet."

The next question will be how to calibrate the military's radar shield.

If the three destroyed objects turn out to have been private or otherwise non-hostile aircraft, then the Pentagon will have to decide whether it should be responding so aggressively after every sighting.

An inter-agency security review is underway, Kirby said, and in the meantime there's no reason to expect a similar rate of drama. "I never said there was some sort of blanket policy, that we're just going to shoot things out of the sky."

Asked if Biden had overreacted and should be embarrassed if the three objects shot down turn out to be something innocuous, like weather study balloons, Jean-Pierre said: "I don't think the president should be embarrassed by the fact that he took action to make sure that our airspace, civilian airspace, was safe."



Former Iranian Minister Calls for Iranian Control over Strait of Hormuz

Oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, December 21, 2018. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo
Oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, December 21, 2018. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo
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Former Iranian Minister Calls for Iranian Control over Strait of Hormuz

Oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, December 21, 2018. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo
Oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, December 21, 2018. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo

Former Iranian Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi has said that tankers and LNG cargoes should only transit the Strait of Hormuz with Iranian permission and this policy should be carried out from "tomorrow for a hundred days."

It was not immediately clear whether Khandouzi was echoing a plan under the Iranian establishment's consideration or sharing his personal opinion, according to Reuters.

Tehran has long used the threat of blocking the narrow waterway as a means to ward off Western pressure, without acting on its threats. The stakes have risen since Israel launched an air war on Iran last week after concluding the latter was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. Iran maintains its nuclear programme is purely for civilian purposes.

"This policy [of controlling maritime transit in the Strait]is decisive if implemented on time. Any delay in carrying it out means prolonging war inside the country," Khandouzi posted on X on Tuesday.

Khandouzi was economy minister until the summer of last year in the cabinet of late President Ebrahim Raisi and remains close to the Iranian establishment's hardliners.

About 20% of the world’s daily oil consumption — around 18 million barrels — passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which is only about 33 km (21 miles) wide at its narrowest point.