US fighter jet shoots down suspected Chinese spy balloon with missile

A US military fighter jet has shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina, a week after it first entered US airspace and triggered a dramatic - and public - spying saga.

President Joe Biden said he had issued an order on Wednesday to take down the balloon, but the Pentagon had recommended waiting until it could be done over open water to safeguard civilians from debris crashing to Earth from thousands of meters above commercial air traffic.

"They successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it," Biden said.

Multiple fighter and refueling aircraft were involved in the mission, but only one - an F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia - took the shot at 2:39 pm (1939 GMT), using a single AIM-9X supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile, a senior US military official said.

China strongly condemned the military strike on an airship that it says was used for meteorological and other scientific purposes, and which it said had strayed into US airspace "completely accidentally" - claims flatly dismissed by US officials.

"China had clearly asked the US to handle this properly in a calm, professional and restrained manner," China's foreign ministry said in a statement. "The US had insisted on using force, obviously overreacting."

The balloon was shot down about six nautical miles off the US coast of the Atlantic Ocean, over relatively shallow water, potentially aiding efforts to recover elements of the Chinese surveillance equipment over the coming days, US officials said.

One US military official said the debris field was spread out over 11 km of ocean, and multiple US military vessels were on site.

The downing of the balloon came shortly after the US government ordered a halt to flights in and out of three airports in South Carolina - Wilmington, Myrtle Beach and Charleston - due to what it said at the time was an undisclosed "national security effort". Flights resumed on Saturday afternoon.

While Saturday's shootdown concludes the military dimension to the spying saga, Biden is likely to continue to face intense political scrutiny from Republican opponents in Congress who argue he failed to act quickly enough.

A senior administration official said after shooting down the balloon, the US government spoke directly with China about the action. The State Department also briefed allies and partners around the world, the official said.

Questions remain about how much information China may have gathered during the balloon's trek across the United States.

The balloon entered US airspace in Alaska on January 28 before moving into Canadian airspace on January 30. It then re-entered US airspace over northern Idaho on January 31, a US defense official said. Once it crossed over US land, it did not return to open waters, making a shootdown difficult.

US officials did not publicly disclose the balloon's presence over the United States until Thursday.

"It's clear the Biden administration had hoped to hide this national security failure from Congress and the American people," said US Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican who leads the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

Biden's emphasis on Saturday that - days ago - he ordered the balloon shot down as soon as possible could be an effort to respond to such critics.

Former President Donald Trump, Biden's potential rival in the 2024 election, called earlier this week for the balloon to be shot down, and has sought to portray himself as stronger than Biden on China. The US relationship with China is likely to be a major theme of the 2024 presidential race.

A Reuters photographer who witnessed the shootdown said a stream came from a jet and hit the balloon, but there was no explosion. It then began to fall.

The Pentagon assesses that the balloon was part of a fleet of Chinese spy balloons. On Friday, it said another Chinese balloon was flying over Latin America.

"Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents, including in East Asia, South Asia and Europe," the US official said.

The suspected spy balloon prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a visit to China this week that had been expected to start on Friday.

The postponement of Blinken's trip, which had been agreed to in November by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, was a blow to those who saw it as an overdue opportunity to stabilise an increasingly fractious relationship between the two countries.