New York Democrat Rep. Gregory Meeks called the deployment of a Chinese surveillance balloon in American skies a “violation of our sovereignty.”
The ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Friday that while the Chinese surveillance balloon’s presence in U.S. airspace violated American sovereignty, the safety of American civilians was not immediately threatened.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press NOW” that it is premature to conclude that China intentionally sent a surveillance balloon to the United States until the committee receives classified briefings from the Biden administration with “all the facts.”
“I can say with certainty that the information we have indicates that this balloon is not currently a threat. That there is a danger of damaging the ground if it is brought down, “– Meeks made an announcement.
It is “worrying to me still because a balloon floating across the ocean and coming around into places sensitive for us, you’ve got to be cautious,” he said of the balloon’s presence.
The Pentagon said on Thursday that the United States government has discovered a surveillance balloon flying at a high altitude above the continental United States. From what we’ve heard so far, the balloon was floating above Montana, not too far from Malmstrom Air Force Base where the United States guards its nuclear weapons.
On Friday evening, Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder said that a second balloon had been detected over South America.
The United States is “confident” the balloons came from China, according to senior State Department officials. They called the invasion into U.S. airspace “unacceptable” and a “clear infringement of our sovereignty and national law.”
The Chinese foreign ministry acknowledged the balloon’s Chinese provenance but said it was only a lost civilian weather balloon.
The charges made by the PRC have been refuted by the United States. A senior American official has stated that “this was purposeful.”
There has been pressure from Republican senators for President Biden to shoot the balloon down, but he has resisted out of worry that the debris from a failed effort may plummet to Earth at such high speeds as to cause casualties. It has been speculated that the balloon’s underside is home to machinery the size of three Greyhound buses.
The meeting between Foreign Secretary Antony Blinker and high-ranking Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, scheduled for this weekend has been postponed indefinitely.
Meeks felt that Blinken had made the “correct choice” by canceling the trip.
He went so far as to claim that the presence of an unidentified flying object in American airspace violated the country’s constitutional rights.
The congressman stated that the balloon should not be allowed to leave U.S. airspace until it can be confirmed by the administration that it is, in fact, a weather balloon, as the Chinese government has claimed.
Meeks said the tension was “very high,” so he emphasized the need for “dialogue and diplomacy.”