Sat, Apr 11th, 2020 - 3:49pm
February 06, 2023 - 12:00pm | By Kyle Cornell
(Washington, D.C.) -- Two thirds of North Dakota's congressional delegation are issuing responses to the shooting down of the supposed Chinese Spy Balloon just off the east coast of the U.S. over the weekend.
"This blatant violation of U.S. airspace demonstrates China’s growing aggression toward our nation and our allies, and the Biden administration should have acted sooner, rather than allow an adversary to conduct surveillance from one end of our country to the next,” said Senatoe John Hoeven in a statment released to WDAY Radio. “The best response to China is one of strength, and we need to firmly push back whenever they challenge us. That’s why we will continue working to modernize our nuclear forces, while strengthening our ISR and hypersonic missile capabilities, to ensure we can deter or defeat any threat that China poses.”
Senator Hoeven was also joined by fellow Senator Kevin Cramer, who echoed a similar tone to the balloon, which was spotted over Montana last week and made its way all the way down off the coast of South Carolina before being shot down.
"TikTok collects data from millions of Americans every day, and a food processing company with ties to the CCP moved to purchase land just 12 miles from a top military base in North Dakota. Now, a high-altitude Chinese spy balloon – floating low enough for people to look up and see in the sky – was flown from Alaska to South Carolina," said Cramer. "While I am glad the Biden Administration finally acted to address this national security threat, the mere fact China feels comfortable pulling a stunt like this demonstrates the weakness they see in our president. The entire saga warrants a full investigation into why China was able to penetrate our airspace and surveil our assets. Failure to react is a sign of weakness, and weakness only invites bullies like China to be more aggressive.”
The Chinese have called the balloon a civilian-owned project, and have claimed that they hold the right to respond to the actions carried out by the U.S. to shoot the balloon out of the sky.
A similar balloon has also been spotted near South America.
