Canada announced that it had called China's ambassador onto the carpet as Ottawa and Washington expressed their disapproval Friday over a high-altitude balloon found to have been hovering over sensitive sites in the United States.
Canada announced that it had called China's ambassador onto the carpet -- but otherwise remained tight-lipped -- as Ottawa and Washington expressed their disapproval about a high-altitude surveillance balloon found floating over the United States.
U.S. officials also announced Secretary of State Antony Blinken was postponing a planned high-stakes weekend diplomatic trip to China, even as the Biden administration weighed a broader response to the discovery of the balloon.The discovery was announced by Pentagon officials on Thursday, who said one of the places it was spotted was over the state of Montana, which is home to one of America's three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
"In terms of the discussions about whether or not to shoot down this balloon, that was an option," he said. "Because we assess that currently it does not pose a physical or military risk to people on the ground, for now we're continuing to monitor and review options." Adding to the confusion, the Defence Department said it was "monitoring a potential second incident."China, which angrily denounces surveillance attempts by the U.S. and others over areas it considers to be its territory and once forced down an American spy plane, offered a generally muted reaction to the Pentagon announcement.
Social media was alive on Friday with suggestions based on publicly available flight-tracking data that the Canadian military had deployed aircraft earlier in the week to track the balloon as it travelled over the Rockies in British Columbia and down into the western U.S. The balloon's appearance represented an awkward moment for the Chinese government and president Xi Jinping, he said.
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