Diplomatic Standoff Between U.S. And China As Blinken Pauses Trip After Chinese Balloon Detected In Montana

The State Department on Friday said Secretary of State Antony Blinken will not travel to Beijing this weekend as originally intended while a massive surveillance balloon was found floating above northwest Montana, home of one of America’s three nuclear missile silos, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

“The presence of this balloon in our airspace is a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law, and it is unacceptable that this has occurred,” a senior administration official told reporters.

Shooting down the balloon with F-22 fighter jets was an option, but the Pentagon worried that destroying a large aircraft would pose a civilian risk to anyone within a 20 mile by 20 mile area.

"The balloon is still traveling 60,000 feet in the air over the center of the continental United States moving eastward," a Pentagon spokesperson told reporters.

At a press conference with South Korea's visiting foreign minister on Friday at the State Department, Blinken said he spoke with Wang Yi, director of China's Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, and told him that the incident on the eve of his trip was an "irresponsible act" by China, but Washington remained committed to engagement and he would visit when conditions allowed.

“I can only imagine what the reaction would be in China if they were on the other end,” Blinken said, adding that “job one” now was to remove the aircraft from U.S. airspace.

Washington will maintain open lines of communication with China, he added.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.