U.S.-China Balloon Dispute Widens Amid Mystery Airspace Intrusions  

 

• Washington and Beijing traded accusations about alleged spy balloons on Monday as the United States and Canada scrambled to explain the three other objects the U.S. military shot down over North American airspace during the weekend.
• China widened its dispute with the United States on Monday, claiming that U.S. high-altitude balloons had flown over its airspace without permission more than 10 times since the beginning of 2022. The White House promptly denied it. "This is the latest example of China scrambling to do damage control," White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
• The new claim came as American and Canadian officials struggled to explain the origin of three additional objects U.S. fighter jets downed over North American airspace since Feb. 4, when a Chinese balloon was downed off the South Carolina coast after drifting across the United States.
• U.S. military fighter jets on Sunday downed an octagonal object over Lake Huron, the Pentagon said. On Friday, an object was shot down over sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska, and a third object, cylindrical in shape, was destroyed over Canada's Yukon on Saturday.
• In Canada's Yukon province, the search for debris continued Monday, two days after the object discovered in Canadian airspace was shot down, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said in an interview with CNN. "We are still in the process of locating the debris and we will move to locate it and analyze it," she said.

(Source: Reuters)