White House dismisses claims of US balloons in Chinese airspace: ‘Not true’

The White House shot down accusations from the Chinese government that the U.S. has recently flown spy balloons over the country, as tensions between the two powers continue to flare over the suspected surveillance balloon from Beijing that was downed by the U.S. earlier this month.

“Not true. Not doing it. Just absolutely not true,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told MSNBC when asked about the accusations from China. “We are not flying balloons over China. This is absolutely true.”

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson also pushed back on the suggestion from China, saying on Twitter that any claim that the U.S. flew balloons over the country was “false.”

“Any claim that the US government operates surveillance balloons over the PRC is false,” Watson said. “It is China that has a high-altitude surveillance balloon program for intelligence collection, that it has used to violate the sovereignty of the US and over 40 countries across 5 continents.”

The pushback from the White House comes after Beijing on Monday said that more than 10 high-altitude balloons belonging to the U.S. flew over China in the last year.

“It is also common for U.S. balloons to illegally enter the airspace of other countries. Since last year, the U.S.’s high-altitude balloons have undergone more than 10 illegal flights into Chinese airspace without the approval of the relevant Chinese departments,” said China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a briefing in Beijing. 

Wang did not clarify what China did to the balloons, or whether they were linked to the U.S. government.

The finger-pointing between the U.S. and China follows the decision by the Biden administration to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina earlier this month. China has accused the U.S. of overreacting to the incident, saying it was a civilian weather balloon that was blown off of its course.

But the U.S. said that China had previously flown such balloons over U.S. territory, and many parts of the world, for surveillance reasons.

Over the last few days, the U.S. shot down three more unidentified objects in U.S. and Canadian airspace, however, the Biden administration has offered scarce information about what the objects were doing, or where they came from.