The US has rejected China’s excuse for a ‘spy’ balloon that was tracked flying across America, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed an upcoming trip to Beijing.
In the first admission the device was connected to China, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson expressed “regret” at the “unintended entry of the airship into US airspace”.
The ministry claimed the balloon was a “civilian airship” used mainly for weather research and it had been blown off course.
“Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course,” the Chinese foreign ministry said.
“The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure.
“The Chinese side will continue communicating with the US side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure.”
The Pentagon rejected China’s explanation and said the airborne device was a “surveillance” balloon that “violated US air space and international law”.
Mr Binken cancelled his China trip which would have been the first high level US-China talks in years.
The meetings had already been postponed from November, and the last visit by a US secretary of state was in 2017.
The latest delay is a blow to those on both sides who saw it as an overdue opportunity to stabilise an increasingly fractious relationship.
Local broadcaster ABC News earlier cited a US official as saying Mr Blinken did not want to blow the situation out of proportion by cancelling his visit but also did not want the balloon incident to dominate his meetings with Chinese officials.
“After consultations with our interagency partners as well as with Congress, we have concluded that the conditions are not right at this moment for Secretary Blinken to travel to China,” a senior State Department official told reporters.
“We have noted the PRC (People’s Republic of China) statement of regret but the presence of this balloon in our airspace is a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law, and it is unacceptable that this has occurred,” the official said.
“The secretary conveyed to the director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office Wang Yi earlier this morning, that the trip would need to be postponed. But the secretary indicated that he would plan to travel to the PRC at the earliest opportunity when conditions allow.”
The US government had been tracking the high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continent for a number of days.
The Pentagon said it was “travelling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground”.
US military leaders considered shooting down the balloon over Montana but eventually President Joe Biden decided against it because of the safety risk from debris.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton had called for Mr Blinken to cancel his trip while Donald Trump, a declared presidential candidate for 2024, posted “SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON!” on his Truth Social media platform.
Mr Biden ignored questions about the balloon when giving remarks on the economy on Friday morning.
One US official said the balloon was assessed to have “limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective”.
One US official said the flight path would carry the balloon over a number of sensitive sites but did not give details.
Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana is home to 150 intercontinental ballistic missile silos.
The Billings, Montana, airport issued a ground stop as the military mobilised assets including F-22 fighter jets in case Mr Biden ordered that the balloon be shot down.
Billings resident Chase Doak, who filmed it on Wednesday, said at first he thought it was a star.
“But I thought that was kind of crazy because it was broad daylight and when I looked at it, it was just too big to be a star,” he told Reuters.
Such balloons typically operate at 24,000-37,000 metres, well above where commercial air traffic flies.
From military spy satellites in space to advanced electronic intelligence aircraft and submarines, the United States routinely deploys an array of assets to monitor China’s military build-up, analysts and diplomats say.
China has often complained about surveillance by the United States, including its deployment of ships or planes near Chinese military exercises.
The World Observer Media produces a daily online newspaper, a daily Arabic online newspaper and a monthly printed Arabic/English magazine and a weekly printed Arabic/English newspaper.
The World Observer Media’s mission is to entertain and educate all generation from the Ethnic Communities in Australia, who are interested in local, national and foreign information. 
