Spy balloon: Hobbyists say $12 pico balloon may have been shot down by US as Biden rules out China

Lawmakers have used the Chinese surveillance balloon incident to boost policy discussions about TikTok in the United States, and officials across the country are mulling outright bans over security concerns.

The company’s CEO Shou Zi Chew told The Washington Post that “tough conversations” are needed before such decisions are made.

Mr Chew, the former chief financial officer of TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance, told the newspaper that suspicions that allegations or concerns that the company is abusing user information are “misinformed” or based on “misrepresentations.”

He said that he did not believe the company would hand over such information to the Chinese government “because US user data is subject to US law.”

“We have to have tough conversations on: Who is using it now? What kind of value does it bring to them? What does it mean if we just, like, rip it out of their hands?” he told the newspaper. “I don’t take this conversation of ‘let’s just ban TikTok’ very lightly. … I don’t think it’s a trivial question. I don’t think it should be something that’s decided, you know, in 280 characters.”

The White House has confirmed that President Joe Biden will give remarks from the South Court Auditorium at 2pm about “the United States’ response to recent aerial objects”.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is hosting a briefing momentarily.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday that the president will discuss the administration’s “decisive response to China’s high-altitude surveillance balloon” and three other objects recently fired out of the sky by American fighter jets.

His remarks will also discuss “putting the safety and security of American people always first,” she added.

The work of an interagency team appointed by the president to study the issue of such objects is ongoing, she said.

China announced on Thursday sanctions against two US military contractors – Lockheed Martin and Raytheon – over arms sales to Taiwan.

It is not immediately clear how those sanctions will impact the manufacturers of key defense equipment, including fighter jets and missiles. The US already bars weapon technology sales to China.

China also announced sanctions against the companies last year following the announcement of a $100m arms sale.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Peirre called the latest sanctions “symbolic measures and unnecessary.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused Chinese authorities of “deflecting, coming up with excuses, and trying to spin” the appearance of a surveillance balloon over the US, as officials in China continue to insist that it was a civilian craft that drifted off course.

“At the end of the day, their surveillance balloon was indeed in our airspace,” she told reporters on Thursday. “The American people, the entire world, saw what China did and it’s irresponsible.”

She said that the administration’s approach with China “is going to be calm, resolute and practical”.

“We’re going to keep our airways, our communications line open, as they have been before … and after,” she added. “It is up to China how they want to move forward with this relationship … Are they going to build on that and show it’s something they’re willing to do? And that’s on them.”

The “Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade” is worried that a small, globe-trotting balloon was fired out of the sky by a US military heatseeking missile.

The Illinois-based hobbyist club declared its balloon “missing in action” on 15 February, according to Aviation Week.

The group fears that its balloon was one of three struck down by US fighter jets armed with Sidewinder missiles above North American airspace in recent days.

A “pico balloon” reported its last position on 10 February at 38,910 feet off the west coast of Alaska, projected to be floating towards the central Yukon territory of Canada on 11 February – the same day that a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor jet fired a Sidewinder missile at an unidentified object flying at about 40,000 feet in the same area after tracking it from Alaskan airspace.

President Joe Biden said there is no evidence suggesting that three recently shot-down aerial objects spotted in North American airspace are connected to China, while he made “no apologies” for ordering American fighter jets to shoot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon earlier this month.

The US president explained the three objects’ discovery after US officials “closely scrutinised our airspace, including enhancing our radar to pick up more slow-moving objects” but said the administration does not yet know “what exactly” the three objects were.

“I want to be clear: we don’t have any evidence that there has been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky,” he added.

His order to shoot down the balloon sent a “clear message that the violation of our sovereignty is unacceptable,” he said.

President Joe Biden said the trio of objects shot down by US fighter jets over the last week were most likely “balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions” and not linked to the Chinese espionage program responsible for a larger airship that traveled through US airspace earlier this month.

After his remarks on the balloon and three other objects shot down by American fighter jets, reporters shouted a series of questions all at once.

One reporter asked whether the president is “compromised by your family’s business relationships.”

“Give me a break, man,” he replied, laughing.