The recent US downings of a Chinese spy balloon and other unidentified flying objects are a “sign of how the global threat picture is changing for the worse,” a senior UK official warned on Monday.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace made the comment to The Telegraph less than a day after President Biden ordered an F-16 to shoot down an airborne object hovering some 20,000 feet above Lake Huron.
It followed the downing of mystery objects in Canada and Alaska, and the Chinese spy balloon near South Carolina.
“The UK and its allies will review what these airspace intrusions mean for our security,” Wallace said, according to Reuters. “This development is another sign of how the global threat landscape is changing for the worse.”
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The Chinese spy balloon hovers over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina, with a fighter jet and its wake below, on Saturday, February 4. (Chad Fish via AP)
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, when asked to react to Wallace’s comments at a news conference in Beijing on Monday, said: “We have already stated our position on the incident in question.”
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British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace speaks during a news conference following his meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the British embassy in Moscow, Russia, February 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)
“All parties should look at it objectively and stop playing around with it,” he was quoted as saying by Reuters.
A balloon flies in the sky over Billings, Montana, on February 1, 2023 in this image obtained from social media. (Chase Doak/via Reuters)
Britain’s Transport Minister Richard Holden also told Sky News on Monday that China “may” have already flown spy balloons over Britain.
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“The government is concerned about what is happening,” he said, according to Reuters. “China is a hostile state and we need to be aware of that and the way it acts and behaves.”
