Chinese spy balloon posed no immediate security threat to US: Report

China’s “spy-balloon” may be gone from US skies, but many issues remain to be sorted in the aftermath of its violent takedown by a heat-seeking missile fired from one of the world’s most advanced fighter jets, Nikkei Asia reported. With anti-China sentiments enjoying bipartisan support in the US, some Republican leaders have tried to score extra political points by attacking President Joe Biden for not shooting down the high-altitude airship sooner. At the same time, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has hinted at the incompetence of the previous Republican administration in failing to detect earlier sorties. Nikkie Asia reported that the decision to deploy a state-of-the-art F-22 Raptor and a USD 500,000 AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to remove the offending object has also been questioned. Despite being more than 60 meters tall and weighing more than 900 kilograms, a top air defence official told reporters that the airship demonstrated neither “hostile act nor hostile intent.” Chinese officials, meanwhile, continue to insist that Washington overreacted by destroying what they insist was a civilian meteorological balloon. That the Biden administration decided to take such a drastic course of action in response to the violation of US territorial airspace, though, is due to the growing desire among American policymakers to be seen and heard as taking a tough stance on China. While the balloon on its own did not constitute a clear and present danger to US national security, its trajectory over sensitive American military installations, such as Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, betrays the non-benign nature of the overflight. Indeed, it could even be seen as a signal of Beijing’s intent to prepare for a future all-out war, as per the report by Nikkei Asia. The conduct of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities by one military against another is fair game in international politics. To track the growing capabilities of the