U.S. shoots down suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast

The United States military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina, in a high-profile national security action that underscored rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. The large high-altitude balloon had drifted across U.S. and Canadian airspace for several days before a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fired a missile over the Atlantic Ocean near Myrtle Beach, successfully bringing the balloon down about six nautical miles offshore. U.S. officials had tracked the balloon since late January as it crossed Alaska and Canada, and President Joe Biden authorized its removal once it reached a position over water to reduce risks to people and property on the ground. U.S. defense officials characterised the balloon as an intelligence-gathering platform equipped with surveillance technology capable of monitoring communications and other signals, though China maintained that the device was a civilian meteorological balloon that had blown off course. The shoot-down added to an already fraught relationship between the world’s two largest economies, prompting diplomatic protests from Beijing, which condemned the use of force and denied espionage intent. U.S. efforts then turned to recovering the balloon debris from the ocean to analyse its payload and equipment, with Navy and Coast Guard assets involved in the operation. The incident highlighted unresolved disputes over aerial surveillance, national sovereignty, and intelligence collection in an era of evolving high-altitude reconnaissance technologies.