The US shot down the giant balloon, which China claimed to be a civilian airship used for research mainly meteorological, on February 4 after it hovered over the country for a week…reports Asian Lite News
United States President Joe Biden directed his national security team to establish a better inventory of unmanned airborne objects in the airspace to detect these objects.
Taking to Twitter, the White House said, “President Biden has directed his national security team to establish a better inventory of unmanned airborne objects in US airspace, implement further measures to improve our capacity to detect these objects, and update rules for launching and maintaining these objects.” Biden stood to his statement as he said on Thursday that he will direct the national security team to establish a better inventory of unmanned airborne objects and will also implement further measures to improve the capacity to detect these objects.
Delivering remarks on the United States’ response to recent aerial objects, Biden said that the Intelligence Community has no indication that the three objects that were shot down in the past days were the surveillance craft from China.
Biden added that he expects to talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“The Intelligence Community’s current assessment is that these 3 objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research.”
The US shot down the giant balloon, which China claimed to be a civilian airship used for research mainly meteorological, on February 4 after it hovered over the country for a week.
“I want to be clear, we don’t have any evidence that there’s been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky. We’re now just seeing more of them partially because of the steps we’ve taken to increase our radars,” he added.
Biden further stated that all those 3 objects can be related to the Chinese spy balloon program or they were surveillance vehicles from any other country.
He suggested that he is not going to shoot down every weather balloon that the US sees but will watch out for future spy balloons.
“Make no mistake, if any object presents a threat to the safety, and security of the American people, I will take it down,” US President added.
Biden suggests the newest objects were not part of a foreign spying program. “The three objects are most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions, studying weather or conducting other scientific research,” he said.
The United States is not looking for a “new Cold War” with China. “We’ll also continue to engage with China, as we have through the past two weeks,” Biden said adding that US diplomats will stay in touch with Chinese counterparts, and he will speak at some point with Xi Jinping, China’s leader. (ANI)
