According to U.S officials, a Chinese balloon was shot down after crossing the continental United States which had a trajectory that would have taken over Guam and Hawaii however it was blown off course by prevailing on February 15, 2023.
Washington accuses Beijing of using the balloon for surveillance however China claims it to be a civilian research vessel that could have unintentionally drifted across Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, then Canada and the central United States before it was shot down by the U.S. military off the coast of the South Carolina on February 4, 2023.
This incident has further strained the U.S.-China relations and it had postponed U.S. Secretary of State Athony Blinken’s planned visit to Beijing last week. U.S. military and intelligence agencies tracked the balloon from when it lifted off from Hainan Island near China’s south coast. The U.S. military reported that it has retrieved some critical electronics from the the balloon as well as large sections of the vessel it self.
