WASHINGTON: Senior US officials have advised President Joe Biden not to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon that has been flying over the country for a few days because they are concerned that the debris could pose a safety risk.

The incident brings to mind the lengths Beijing and Washington have gone to to spy on each other as tensions between the superpowers have grown.

Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, stated to reporters, “The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is currently over the continental United States.”

“The balloon does not pose a military or physical threat to people on the ground and is currently traveling at a high altitude well above commercial air traffic.”

The spy balloon was alarming but not surprising, according to the top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, US Senator Marco Rubio.

Rubio made the following statement via Twitter: “The level of espionage aimed at our country by Beijing has grown dramatically more intense and brazen over the last five years.”

The information became public while CIA Director William Burns was giving a speech at Georgetown University in Washington. Burns said that China is the “biggest geopolitical challenge” facing the United States at the moment.
China and the United States, the two largest economies in the world, have recently been at odds over Taiwan, China’s record with regard to human rights, and its military activities in the South China Sea.

In the coming days, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China.

On the condition of anonymity, a senior US defense official told reporters that the US has had “custody” of the balloon ever since it entered US airspace a few days ago and has observed it with piloted US military aircraft.

On Wednesday, senior Pentagon officials met to discuss the balloon incident while US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was on his way to the Philippines.