The US will not give China back its spy balloon and is examining what secrets it has

The US has announced how it will respond after a Chinese spy balloon was shot down in its territory, as Beijing called for “calm”.

The United States is in the process of recovering debris from the Chinese balloon out of the Atlantic for analysis by intelligence experts and there is no plan to give the remains back to Beijing, the White House said Monday.

“They have recovered some remnants off the surface of the sea and weather conditions did not permit much undersea surveillance of the debris field,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, two days after a US fighter jet shot down the balloon, which had previously traversed the country.

US personnel will “in the coming days be able to get down there and take a better look at what’s on the bottom of the ocean, but it’s just started,” Mr Kirby said, noting that the area where debris had scattered was “sizeable.”

China says the balloon was an errant weather observation aircraft with no military purpose. The United States says the balloon was a sophisticated high-altitude spying vehicle.

After slowly traversing the middle of the United States, reportedly over several top secret military sites, the balloon headed out over the east coast, where President Joe Biden ordered it to be shot down.

Kirby said there was no intention to send the pieces back. “I know of no such intention or plans to return it,” he said.

The Biden administration is painting the incident as a provocative move by China that turned into something of an own goal by providing US intelligence services with valuable data.

According to Mr Kirby, measures were taken to ensure the balloon’s instruments were “mitigated” in their ability to spy, while “at the same time increasing and improving our ability to collect intelligence and information from it.” “We’re still analysing the information that we were able to collect off of the balloon before we shot it out of the sky and now we’re going to recover it and I suspect we may learn even more.” One detail already known, Mr Kirby said, is that the balloon was not merely drifting but had propellers and steering to give a measure of control, even as it was swept along in the high altitude Jet Stream wind.

“It is true that this balloon had the ability manoeuvre itself -- to speed up, to slow down and to turn. So it had propellers, it had a rudder, if you will, to allow it to change direction,” he said. “But the most important navigational vector was the jet stream itself, the winds at such a high

altitude.”

CHINA CALLS FOR ‘CALM’

China demanded everyone stay “calm”, especially the United States, after confirming a second balloon was flying over the Americas.

As US Navy divers began recovering the first balloon shot down over the Atlantic, thought to have been carrying explosives, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said a second balloon detected by the US over Latin America had also flown off course due to bad weather.

“What I want to emphasise regarding this unexpected accident is that both sides, especially the US, should remain calm,” Ning said on Monday local time.

It comes as China’s Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng lodged a formal complaint with the US Embassy over the “US attack on a Chinese civilian unmanned airship by military force”.

He added the downing of the balloon off the Carolina coast had “seriously impacted and damaged both sides’ efforts and progress in stabilising Sino-US relations.”

“The United States turned a deaf ear and insisted on indiscriminate use of force against the civilian airship that was about to leave the United States airspace, obviously overreacted and seriously violated the spirit of international law and international practice,” Xie said.

Mr Kirby dismissed China’s criticism, saying the US shot down the balloon “in accordance with international law and in defence of our homeland and of our sovereign airspace”.

“We are absolutely going to recover as much of as much of it as we can and learn from it,” he told reporters.

Mr Kirby added there was “no reason for the tensions” for China and the US to “devolve into some kind of conflict”, despite confirming that Beijing was controlling the speed and direction of the balloon to spy on large swathes of the country.

The USS Carter Hall landing ship has been using sonar to locate and collect debris from a search area the size of about 15 football fields, or about 1,500 metres by 1,500 metres, the Pentagon said.

Commander of US forces in North America, Air Force General Glen Van Herck, said intelligence collected on the spy balloon showed its ability to transmit signals. The intel also revealed that three previous balloons had previously flown into US airspace but went undetected.

Herck added that the balloon was estimated to have been up to 60 metres tall, weigh between 500 and 1000 kilograms, and carry a payload of photographic equipment and possibly explosives to destroy itself. The Department of Defence could not yet confirm that the balloon carried explosives.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, speaking at the first press conference since US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled a planned trip to Beijing, said the balloon was a “completely an isolated and accidental incident”, despite confirming a second incident in near-identical circumstances.

“The US still hyped up the incident on purpose and even used force to attack,” Ning said at the briefing Monday (local time). “This is an unacceptable and irresponsible action.”

Ning said the second balloon, also claimed to be a civilian airship used for meteorological research, was also blown off course, “and accidentally entered Latin American and Caribbean airspace.”

“We have communicated with the relevant parties and are handling appropriately, and will not cause any threat to any country,” Ning said.

The moment a US fighter jet shoots down suspected Chinese spy balloon. Picture: Angela Mosley

The moment a US fighter jet shoots down suspected Chinese spy balloon. Picture: Angela Mosley

The moment a US fighter jet shoots down suspected Chinese spy balloon. Picture: Angela Mosley

The Pentagon said Friday that a second suspected Chinese spy balloon had been seen across over Colombia.

Colombia’s air force then reported an object with “characteristics similar to those of a balloon” had been detected and “monitored until it left the national air space”.

The air force said it was conducting investigations in co-ordination with other countries and institutions “to establish the origins of the object”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Picture: AFP

US Navy divers began operations to retrieve debris from the balloon almost immediately after a US F-22 fighter jet shot it down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday (local time).

Navy and Coast Guard ships were dispatched to the scene off of Myrtle Beach to scour the seabed 15-metres deep for traces of the balloon, estimated to be the size of two school buses, scattered over an 11-kilometre search area.

General VanHerck said in a statement that navy personnel leading the recovery operations, while the Coast Guard secured the surrounding area.

Once discovered and tagged by divers, the debris will be lifted to the surface by boat-mounted cranes.

Chuck Schumer, the US Senate Democratic leader, said the downing of the balloon over water, rather than land, “maximised our intel gain”.

He added the full Senate would receive a classified briefing on February 15.

The incident has greatly increased tensions between the US and China, with Beijing’s foreign minister warning they “reserve the right to make further necessary reactions”.

Former US Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Mike Mullen told ABC News it was “clearly” the case that the Chinese military launched the balloon to disrupt the Blinken visit, adding the balloon “had propellers on it”.

“This was not an accident. This was deliberate. It was intelligence.”

–With AFP

Originally published as The US will not give China back its spy balloon and is examining what secrets it has