U.S. monitoring suspected Chinese spy balloon

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STORY: The U.S. says it's monitoring a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon spotted above Montana.

If confirmed, it would a brazen act just days ahead of a planned trip to Beijing by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

This video, captured in the city of Billings, showed what appeared to be the suspected spy balloon.

Officials said fighter jets were mobilized to potentially shoot it out of the sky.

The Pentagon advised President Joe Biden against doing so for fear debris could pose a safety threat.

It said the balloon was traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic,

and did not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.

Reuters spoke to the eyewitness who shot the video, Chase Doak:

"I was looking out the window like I normally do, and I just happened to spot it out of the corner of my eye and at first, I thought it was a star, but I thought that was kind of crazy because it was broad daylight and when I looked at it, it was just too big to be a star.”

The incident may highlight the lengths to which Beijing and Washington have been willing to go to spy on each other amid rising tensions between the superpowers.

Blinken is expected to travel to China next week for a visit agreed to in November by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The discovery of the spy balloon may affect those plans.

John Parachini is a Senior International Defense Researcher at the think tank, RAND.

"It's not clear that it is going to see anything more of the United States that the Chinese satellites already see. So The timing is unusual and in many respects unfortunate. President Biden has talked about keeping lines of communication open to the Chinese government and secretary Blinken's trip to the People's Republic of China in the coming days was part of that effort, so this creates a complication for both the United States and China to discuss and it's an unfortunate provocation."

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy took to Twitter to voice outrage:

"China's brazen disregard for U.S. sovereignty is a destabilizing action that must be addressed," he tweeted.

"President Biden cannot be silent."

McCarthy said he would request a "Gang of Eight" meeting, which is a classified national security briefing for leaders on both sides of the political divide.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing was "verifying" the situation and warned against speculation and hype.