After shooting down a suspected Chinese spy balloon, the US military took three more missiles out of the sky between Friday and Sunday. The public has not yet heard any details. President Biden has been criticized for silence, including from within his own ranks.
In the guesswork about the unidentified flying objects over North America, the pressure on US President Joe Biden is increasing. The President should be more transparent, demanded politicians from both political camps. So far, Biden has not commented on the three aircraft shot down over US and Canadian airspace between Friday and Sunday.
Instead, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said there was no indication the missiles were spying. However, it is not yet known where the objects came from and why they were in the sky. Senators from both political camps received more information about the events behind closed doors on Tuesday. After that, both Republicans and Democrats called on President Biden to be more transparent.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said after the briefing that he now understands the incidents better, but that the population needs to know more about them. But he is not concerned that the United States would be threatened. Republican Senator Tom Cotton said Americans have a right to know why Biden shot down the craft.
After the US military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon on February 4, it has taken three other previously unidentified flying objects from the sky since Friday. One was shot down over Alaska, one over Canada and one over Lake Huron, which is part of the Great Lakes in the northern United States bordering Canada. Since then there has been speculation about the flying objects.
The US military is hoping for information from their remains. Every effort is made to recover the debris, Kirby said. The search was difficult because of the bad weather and the impassable terrain. In one case, the debris lay at the bottom of Lake Huron. The huge inland lake is almost 230 meters deep at one point. The government, on the other hand, has more information about the downed Chinese surveillance balloon. Search parties have managed to bring the first parts of the balloon from the seabed to the surface. "We're learning from the debris we're pulling up from the bottom of the Atlantic," Kirby said. He renewed his allegations against China: "It is a concerted action by the Chinese to use this special type of platform for surveillance and information gathering."
Senate Minority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, called for the President to take a firmer stance on outside threats. Not only has Biden said nothing about the weekend's incidents, but the president only casually mentioned the alleged Chinese spy balloon in his State of the Union address last week. The American people deserve to learn more about this from the President.
The ballooning incident worsened already strained US-China relations. US Secretary of State Blinken canceled a planned trip to Beijing at short notice when the first flying object appeared. The visit was actually intended to smooth the waves between the two great powers. It didn't come to that.
However, an opportunity for this could present itself soon. Ahead of the upcoming Munich Security Conference, rumors about a possible meeting between China's top foreign policy leader Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Blinken were circulating on the sidelines of the conference. China has not yet confirmed such a meeting. US media had reported that Blinken was considering a meeting.
