Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON: A Chinese spy balloon changed course and now floating eastward at about 60,000 feet over the central United States (US), demonstrating a capability to maneuver, the US army said on Friday, in the latest twist to the spying saga that led Antony Blinken, United States Secretary of State, to postpone the visit to China.
The disclosure of the spy balloon’s maneuverability challenged China’s assertion that the balloon was merely the civilian airship that had strayed into the United States. Territory after being blown off course.
“We know this is the Chinese balloon and that it can maneuver,” Air Force Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said at the Pentagon, declining to say precisely how it was powered and who in China was controlling its flight path.
United States president’s stance
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday has decided against shooting down a balloon as it floated over Montana due to U.S army concerns about a likely dispersal of debris, American officials say.
The Pentagon expects a balloon to continue traveling over United States airspace for a few more days; Ryder said that declining to speculate on what options the U.S. army might develop in that time as speculation swirled about if Joe Biden could still order a balloon to be destroyed and perhaps captured.
Ryder said the US military could not specify where precisely a balloon was positioned over the central United States, saying he did not want to get into an “hour-by-hour” cycle of updates. He said that people in any given United States state could look up into the sky if they wanted
