Chinese Balloon Case Reveals Trail of Spy Games, Double Standards in Colombia

Advertisement On February 3, a large unidentified balloon floating at an altitude of 55,000, now confirmed to have originated from China, was detected in Colombia’s airspace through Colombia’s National Air Defense System. The Colombian defense establishment insisted that the balloon represented “no threat to the sovereignty of the country, nor to the air security of the region.” The balloon was spotted near the cities of Valledupar and Cartagena, heading further toward the Southeast into Brazil. As with the Chinese balloon that flew over the United States earlier this month, Mao…

Blinken: China May Consider Providing Lethal Assistance to Russia

The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concern Sunday that China may be contemplating sending lethal assistance to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. He made the comments before landing in Turkey, where he toured the damage caused by the recent earthquakes. As VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports, U.S.-China tensions have spiked after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this month. VOA

US General Warns China Biggest Threat in Space

Munich, Germany —  Space has “fundamentally changed” in just a few years due to a growing arms race, a U.S. general said, singling out China as the “most challenging threat,” followed by Russia. “We are seeing a whole mix of weapons being produced by our strategic competitors,” General Bradley Chance Saltzman, the U.S. chief of space operations, told a group of media, including AFP. “The most challenging threat is China but also Russia,” he said, speaking late Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, listing technologies including anti-satellite…

U.S. Warnings to China on Arms Aid for Russia’s War Portend Global Rift

MADRID — When the top foreign policy officials from the United States and China appeared this weekend at Europe’s premiere global security conference, both stressed that their governments were not seeking a new Cold War. Yet, new warnings by U.S. officials that China may be preparing to give weapons and ammunition to Russia ‌for its war on Ukraine portend the worst of the old Cold War. In that decades-long shadow struggle, the United States, the Soviet Union and occasionally China poured military resources into protracted wars around the globe, engaging…

US: No Apology From China for Balloon Surveillance 

Washington —  U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says his Chinese counterpart, top diplomat Wang Yi, did not apologize during a meeting in Munich for Beijing’s violation of U.S. airspace with its high-altitude surveillance balloon, even as Blinken told him the spying was unacceptable and must never occur again. The two diplomats met for an hour Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. This marked their first face-to-face meeting since the United States shot down the balloon earlier this month over the Atlantic Ocean off the U.S. Eastern…

US handling of Chinese balloon row deflates Asian allies’ confidence

At first, the US was wary about overreacting. Washington did not immediately announce or protest against the intrusion of the balloon into US airspace. In a February 2 press briefing, the Pentagon did not mention China and said the balloon “does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.” Then, politics took over and Republican politicians began to stoke outrage in Washington. North Dakota senator Kevin Cramer called it an “invasion”. South Carolina senator Tim Scott asked supporters if Biden had put Americans in danger by…

US says China considering supplying weapons to Russia in Ukraine war

He told Wang that “if China provides material support to Russia or assistance with systemic sanctions evasion,” there will be consequences, a State Department official said. Taken together, the US comments appeared to be among the clearest warning yet that China might be poised to go beyond rhetorical, political or diplomatic support for Russia and be ready to help arm it in its nearly year-old fight against Ukraine. Advertisement They also came at a time when already strained US-Chinese relations have been further tested by Washington’s shooting down of what…

N. Korea Issues Fresh Threats, US Bombers Fly After ICBM Test 

Seoul, South Korea —  North Korea said Sunday its latest intercontinental ballistic missile test was meant to further bolster its “fatal” nuclear attack capacity and threatened additional powerful steps over upcoming military drills between the United States and South Korea. The United States responded by flying long-range supersonic bombers in a show of force later Sunday for separate joint exercises with South Korean and Japanese warplanes. Saturday’s ICBM test, the North’s first missile test since Jan. 1, signals its leader Kim Jong Un is using his rivals’ drills as a…

China may be on brink of supplying arms to Russia, says Blinken

The US has said it believes China may be about to provide lethal aid to help Russia in the war in Ukraine, prompting a direct warning against doing so from the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to China’s top diplomat. Blinken made the warning to the Chinese state councillor Wang Yi on Saturday evening at a meeting on the sidelines of the Munich security conference during which he also rebuked China over the use of an alleged spy balloon over US soil. In a blunt meeting he also urged China…