The first time we were hearing
directly from China.
After surprising reports
that a suspected Chinese
spy balloon is floating over
the northern U.S.,
the Chinese foreign ministry
spokesperson addressed the situation
a short time ago,
saying they are aware of the reports.
And we'll have more on a live report
from Beijing in just a moment.
But a senior US defense
official says the Pentagon
is confident
this surveillance
balloon belongs to China.
The U.S.
has been tracking it for a few days
and it has entered Montana via Canada.
We've been hearing
that it does not pose a serious risk,
but it is traveling near sensitive sites.
And people
living in the Billings,
Montana area definitely noticed
something strange in the sky.
Less and less
is the moon
and
there's that
What planet is that?
Okay.
That's the moon.
It's a little fuzzy out here.
And it's a kind of a credit phone,
but it's slightly overcast.
But what the heck is that?
That's not the sun.
And according to my little planet guide,
it's not a planet.
What the heck is that?
Any help would be appreciated.
The military and White House
say there are no plans
to shoot down the balloon.
It's traveling at a very high altitude,
well above commercial air traffic.
But the balloon is near
a potential target
for Chinese espionage,
intercontinental ballistic missiles
located in Montana.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration
says it acted immediately
to prevent the balloon
from collecting
any sensitive information.
CNN's Pentagon
correspondent Oren
Liebermann picks up the story.
It will say it came into the U.S.
over Montana coming in from Canada.
And that's
where they began tracking it
at first launching F-22 fighter jets.
In the end,
the decision was made
not to shoot it down.
President Joe
Biden was asked for military options,
but senior military leaders,
including chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, General Mark Milley,
advised against shooting this down.
Instead, they are keeping an eye on it
and seeing where it goes.
The Pentagon does acknowledge
this traveled over
several sensitive sites,
though they won't specify
which sites those are.
It is worth noting that Montana is home
to ballistic missile silos.
So perhaps that's what this was after.
It is also worth noting, of course,
that the Pentagon says
they are confident,
very confident, in fact,
that this was launched by China
and they brought it up through
diplomatic channels
both here in Washington
and in Beijing,
essentially to express how angry they are
about this
Well,
CNN Beijing bureau chief Steven
Jiang joins me now.
And Stephen,
we just got reaction
from Beijing to this.
What are they saying
Yeah, can
I just
came back from the Foreign Ministry's
daily briefing
where I asked them
three questions
about this alleged Chinese spy balloon.
What's interesting is disposal
did not deny the balloon belongs
to China outright.
Instead,
she gave this rather vague answer,
as you can see on your screen.
She said,
we are aware of reports of the balloon
and are trying
to understand
the circumstances and verify
the details of the situation.
I'd like to stress
that before it becomes clear
what happened.
Any deliberate speculation or hyping up
what now would not help
the handling of the matter, she added.
China is a responsible country.
We act in accordance
with international law
and we have no intention
of violating our country's airspace.
We hope relevant
parties will handle the matter
in a cool handed way.
So this
rather muted response
seemed to give some credence
to the analysis
by some
US experts
that the revelation of this balloon
was deliberate on the part
of some of US officials
to really put the Chinese on the backfoot
ahead of the uplink and visit
to allow the Secretary
to really addressed
this issue with them more directly,
to confront them,
to basically
tell them
what the US knows
and what the US would like to see
Chinese do.
But it's also interesting
that when I and other reporters
asked the Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman about if this revelation
would have any impact on this planned
high stakes visit,
she dodged the question
simply saying she has no information
or updates to announce.
But the timing of this of course, is
what makes this very delicate
and also
potentially highly consequential,
because it really complicates things
at a time
when both governments, at least publicly,
are saying
they're trying to reset
or at least stabilize
this increasingly contentious
relationship.
And remember,
this kind of incident incidents really
in a way playing
to the hands of hardliners on both sides.
Already,
we are seeing
some members of Congress in Washington
calling for stronger actions
and new briefings
and in portraying this as yet
another example
of how President
Biden's China policy is being too weak.
And similarly, on the Chinese sides,
you could see this
potentially really stir
up more nationalistic sentiment
and feelings.
And so,
you know,
this obviously is not happening
in a vacuum.
Ahead of this visit,
we are already seeing a flurry of
activities on the US part,
not only on
the economic and technology front,
but also in the military sphere
in terms
of shoring up its presence in the region,
including those newly
signed agreements with the Philippines
and even without this balloon revelation.
Expectations already
very low about this visit in terms
concrete results
out of the meetings between Blinken
and his Chinese counterpart, Kim.
And with this revelation,
I think it's just adding more uncertainty
to this trip.
For more on this,
I want to bring in Malcolm
Davis from Canberra, Australia.
He's a senior
analyst
with the Australian Strategic
Policy Institute.
Thank you so much for being here with us.
So with this, you know, spy balloon
in some ways it seems comically low tech,
but what do you make of this balloon
and its purpose and capabilities?
Look, I think what it is is
certainly a political message
being sent by China
to challenge the US in terms of
the upcoming visit
by Secretary of State Blinken.
You know,
it's a bit of a provocative shot
across the US
because in that sense,
from a military technical perspective,
I think as you say,
it's a very low tech way of undertaking
intelligence gathering a comparison
to, say, spy satellites,
but in the way that they could use this
balloon to gather
signals intelligence
and electronic intelligence.
They have a critical military site.
It's probably
quite a provocative
but challenging
but effective
way of gathering intelligence.
So so you think it's more to to sort of
listen in rather than to to see things?
I guess
the US decision not to shoot it down,
it surprised some people.
Do you agree with the rationale?
Just let it go?
Yes, essentially because
if you look
at the imagery of the balloon,
you'll note
that there's
two large areas of solar panels below it.
And then
in the middle
there is a series of equipment
sections, essentially
an instrumentation package.
This would have a fair
bit of mass
given the size of the balloon.
So if they shut the balloon down,
there's quite the possibility
that that instrumentation package
and the solar panels
could actually cause damage
or potentially
even harm people
on the surface below when it came
crashing down.
Okay.
But it has to come down sometime.
So where could it land?
And then what happens then?
Does it does it sort of
will we see a James Bond like
race to get to it first?
Well, my initial thought was
I station zebra,
if you remember that movie,
but essentially, yes,
it does have to come down at some point.
And so the instrumentation package
on that balloon
would be of intelligence value to the US
The US would obviously
want to get a hold of that.
The Chinese would want to stop them
from getting that.
So it really does
depend on where it comes down.
If it comes down over the ocean,
perhaps in the Gulf of Mexico
or on the Atlantic Ocean,
then it is a challenge
in terms of recovering up from the water.
If it comes down over
land, potentially over Central America
or Mexico.
That's an even more challenging scenario
because then it's in
someone else's territory.
So it will be interesting
to see how that ultimate endgame
works out.