The Biden administration lauded the Pentagon for shooting down an alleged Chinese spy balloon off the US Atlantic coast on Saturday, but China angrily voiced its “strong dissatisfaction” at the move and said it may make “necessary responses”.
The craft spent several days flying over North America before it was targeted off the coast of the southeastern state of South Carolina with a missile fired from an F-22 plane, Pentagon officials said, falling into relatively shallow water just 14 metres deep.
US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin called the operation a “deliberate and lawful action” that came in response to China’s “unacceptable violation of our sovereignty”.
But China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs blasted the US action in a statement on Sunday morning, saying the downing of the “civilian” aircraft was “clearly overreacting and seriously violating international practice”.
Saturday afternoon was the military’s first chance to take down the balloon “in a way that would not pose a threat to the safety of Americans”, a senior defence official told reporters, while still allowing authorities to collect the fallen debris from US territorial waters.
In an eyewitness video posted to social media, the balloon appeared to disintegrate in a white puff before its remnants dropped vertically into the Atlantic Ocean below.
Twitter user Haley Walsh posted that she “heard and felt the explosion” in Myrtle Beach, a popular resort town in South Carolina.
US President Joe Biden, who earlier on Saturday had promised “to take care” of the balloon, congratulated the fighter pilots involved.
“They successfully took it down. And I want to compliment our aviators who did it,” Biden told reporters in Maryland.
