The Biden administration is considering a plan to shoot down a large Chinese balloon suspected of conducting surveillance on U.S. military, by bringing it down once it is above the Atlantic Ocean where the remnants could potentially be recovered.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation, said President Joe Biden had given the go-ahead. In a brief remark Saturday in response to a reporter's question about the balloon, Biden said: “We're going to take care of it.”
Officials were aiming to time the operation so they could recover as much of the debris as possible before it sinks into the ocean. The Pentagon had previously estimated that the balloon, flying at about 60,000 feet in the air, was about the size of three school buses and that any debris field would be substantial.
“In actuality, the U.S. and China have never announced any visit, the U.S. making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that,” China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Saturday morning. The Pentagon also acknowledged reports of a second balloon flying over Latin America. “We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,” Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement.
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