Huge Chinese Balloon Causes Panic in the United States

WASHINGTON: A huge balloon of Chinese origin said to be loaded with several types of equipment is expected to pass over the United States and the Pentagon has expressed its concerns regarding the presence of surveillance equipment onboard this balloon on Friday.

Reports suggest that this balloon is massive in size and has sent the Pentagon into a frenzy. As a reaction, Antony Bliken, the Secretary of State has cancelled his Beijing trip which was scheduled to start on Friday. This was supposed to be the first visit to China by a top American Diplomat after a break of several years.

The US president was also brief about this violation and the situation is being closely monitored. An official statement mentioned that the initial decision was taken against destroying it in mid-air out of concern for the safety of US citizens.

The Press Secretary of the Pentagon mentioned, "We will continue to monitor it. Right now, we assess that it'll probably be over the United States for a few days, but we'll continue to review our options and keep you updated as we can," while adding that, "It's got a large payload underneath the surveillance component, underneath the actual balloon piece of it".

Reacting to the statement issued by the Chinese regretting the incident, the Press Secretary of the White House mentioned, "the presence of this balloon in our airspace, it is a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law, and it is unacceptable that this occurred,"

"We do know that it is a surveillance balloon. In terms of the size, I'm not able to get into the specifics other than to say that it is big enough that, again, in reviewing our approach we do recognise that any potential debris field would be significant and potentially cause civilian injuries or deaths or significant property damage," an official mentioned.

"This is part of the calculus in terms of our overall assessment, but again, we'll continue to monitor it. We'll continue to review our options and keep you updated as able," he said.

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