By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden, under fire from some lawmakers, said on Thursday he did not view a Chinese spy balloon that transited the United States before it was shot down in the Atlantic Ocean to have been a major security breach.
Biden, who has sought to maintain communications with China and not allow tensions with Beijing to get out of control, said in a Noticias Telemundo interview that he did not regret shooting down the balloon sooner.
“It’s not a major breach,” Biden said. “I mean, look, it’s totally … it’s a violation of international law. It’s our airspace. And once it comes into our space, we can do what we want with it.”
He said U.S. military officials were worried that by shooting it down over land, the balloon and its parts could drop into a populated area.
“This thing was gigantic. What happened if it came down and hit a school in a rural area? What happened if it came down? So I told them as soon as they could shoot it down, shoot it down. They made a wise decision. They shot it down over water, they’re recovering most of the parts, and they’re good,” he said.
Biden on Feb. 2 ordered the balloon shot down once it crossed into the northwestern United States, but acquiesced to the U.S. military’s request to not act until it was over water.
The 200-foot-tall (61-meter) balloon, along with its undercarriage of electronic gadgetry, was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4. The U.S. military has been recovering as many parts as possible.
Some Republicans and Democrats have complained that Biden should have had the balloon downed sooner. The high-altitude surveillance balloon was first detected over Alaska on Jan. 28.
(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Heather Timmons and Leslie Adler)
