The Chinese balloon has already been destroyed, but the Republicans want to charge Biden for not taking it down sooner

The alleged Chinese spy balloon that crossed the United States this week has already been shot down, but criticism of the Biden Administration by Republicans for not ordering the device to be destroyed earlier is only just gaining strength.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill suggest investigating the response of the Biden government to the incident and consider that the passage of the balloon through the territory has been a humiliation and evidenced the "weakness" of the Government.

[Colombia detected an object similar to the Chinese spy balloon: the Pentagon had warned of another in Latin America]

"I will demand answers and hold the administration accountable for this shameful display of weakness," Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Saturday.

A similar position was taken by Mark E. Green, Republican representative from Tennessee and chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security.

"It is indefensible that this threat was removed only after a large public outcry and the damage to American national security and sovereignty had already been done," he said.

The moment China's balloon was shot down by a missile fired from an F-22 fighter jet over the Atlantic off South Carolina. Jonathan Snyder / LSM

"The fact is that President Biden, when faced with the opportunity to protect the homeland from our adversaries, once again chose to show weakness on the world stage," Green said.

The balloon was detected on Saturday, January 28, when it entered US airspace near the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.

He then entered Canada and re-entered the United States through Idaho on Tuesday the 31st. According to a senior defense official, President Biden requested options to overthrow him on Tuesday, which were presented to him by senior military commanders on Wednesday.

Although there was a possibility of destroying it when it flew over the state of Montana, the Government has said that it did not do so to prevent the debris from falling on a population center and affecting people.

[Biden gave the order to fire a missile at the Chinese balloon since Wednesday, but they waited until it was safe]

The device was finally shot down by a missile fired from an Air Force Northern Command F-22 fighter jet, when it was over the Atlantic near the South Carolina coast.

By that time, it had already flown over "near many potentially sensitive sites," according to the Administration.

It sounds like something out of a spy movie, but the Chinese balloon crisis is a very real event with implications.

Feb 3, 202301:47

But the senior defense official said letting it go also allowed the Army to "analyze the globe through various means."

“We have learned technical things about this balloon and its surveillance capabilities and I suspect that if we can recover aspects of the debris, we will learn even more,” he said.

This explanation, however, does not satisfy the Republicans, whose new majority in the Lower House has anyway promised to carry out multiple investigations against the Biden Administration.

Some even go further and took the opportunity to compare the case of the balloon with the immigration situation on the southern border of the United States, where most of the irregular border crossings take place and which has become a political battlefield.

Image of an AIM-9X guided missile, similar to the one the Air Force used to shoot down the Chinese surveillance balloon on Saturday, February 4.

Mark Farmer/AP

"Joe Biden

shooting down the Chinese spy balloon is like closing the southern border after more than 1.2 million illegally escaped into our country. Waiting this long to take action projects weakness and it's too little, too late," the representative wrote by Virginia, Ben Cline, from the most conservative Republican wing in Congress.

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Another who criticized Biden was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio.

"Having the president shoot him (the balloon) over the Atlantic is like shooting down a quarterback after the game is over," the Republican said Sunday on

NBC News'

"This should never have been allowed to enter the United States and it should never have been allowed to complete its mission," Turner said.

This Saturday Biden came out of the way of criticism from Republicans and said that since Wednesday he gave the order to destroy the balloon.

Military leaders discuss whether the alleged Chinese spy balloon poses a threat to the US.

Feb 3, 202302:23

"I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible (...) without harming anyone on the ground. They decided the best time to do it was when it was passing through the water. They shot it down successfully," Biden told the press. press.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin, III, confirmed in a statement that Biden authorized the shootdown mission on Saturday "as soon as it could be accomplished without risk to the lives of persons living in the path of the balloon."

[Arizona removes containers at the border to prevent migrants from crossing]

Some Democrats have also come out to defend the actions of the Biden government regarding China.

"This is an Administration that has been reaching out to counter China's aggression and spying, but also to keep them at the table," Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey told

.

“Creating another standard for Biden when Trump apparently allowed this (Chinese balloon) to fly over the United States is a bit hypocritical,” he said, clearly referring to the news that surveillance balloons from China had apparently already flown over. the US mainland when Donald Trump was president (2017-2021).

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On Saturday, the Department of Defense said in a statement that "Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the previous Administration."

It is unclear what the Trump administration's reaction to that incident was or if any of those balloons were intercepted.

Donald Trump himself reacted this Sunday saying that it is false that Chinese spy balloons circulated throughout the US during his Administration and described the report by the Department of Defense as "false disinformation".

"The Chinese globe situation is an embarrassment, as is the Afghanistan horror show and everything else surrounding the grossly incompetent Biden Administration. They are only good at cheating elections and misinforming, and now they are posting that China placed a balloon during the Trump Administration, to take pressure off Biden's slow fools. China had too much respect for 'TRUMP' for this to happen, and it NEVER happened," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

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After the Army shot down the balloon, China expressed in a statement its "strong discontent and protest" for said action.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry insisted that the device was for civilian use and that it had entered US territory “accidentally”.

"In these circumstances, for the United States to insist on the use of armed force is clearly an 

 that seriously violates international convention," Beijing said, as first reported by The New York Times.

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"China will resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of the company involved and reserves the right to respond," the Chinese government warned.

A Biden Administration official, whose identity was not disclosed, told NBC News that the United States detected another Chinese surveillance balloon while it was transiting through Central and South America, although he did not specify in which countries.

“These balloons are all part of a PRC balloon fleet developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries,” he said.