BEIJING: China urged calm on Friday and said it is looking into reports that a Chinese spy balloon has been flying in American airspace. It also added that it has "no intention" of violating the airspace or territory of any other sovereign nation.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's trip to China is scheduled for this month, but Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said she was unsure of its status.

Mao stated at a daily briefing that the public and elected officials should reserve judgment regarding the spy balloon reports "until we have a clear understanding of the facts."

In an effort to moderate a sharp deterioration in relations between Beijing and Washington over trade, Taiwan, human rights, and China's claims in the South China Sea, Blinken will be President Joe Biden's highest-ranking official to visit China.

"Because China is a law-abiding nation that has always adhered to the letter of the law, it has no intention of violating the airspace or the territory of any other sovereign state," Mao said.

The United States began tracking a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been hovering over American airspace for the past few days. However, the Pentagon decided against shooting it down due to concerns that doing so might harm people on the ground, officials said on Thursday. At a time when tensions are already high, the discovery of the balloon strains U.S.-China relations even more.

The U.S. has "very high confidence" that the object is a Chinese high-altitude balloon that was flying over sensitive locations to gather information, a senior defense official told reporters at the Pentagon. One of the states where the balloon was spotted was Montana, which is home to Malmstrom Air Force Base, one of the country's three nuclear missile silo fields. To discuss sensitive information, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity. It does not pose a military or physical threat to people on the ground, he said, as it is "currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic."

He continued by saying that the US took precautions to prevent the collection of sensitive data. President Joe Biden was briefed and asked the military to present options, according to a senior administration official who was also not authorized to publicly discuss sensitive information.

Because there are dangers to the safety of people on the ground, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin advised against taking "kinetic action." According to the defense official, the U.S. has "engaged" the Chinese authorities through a number of channels and conveyed the gravity of the situation.

The incident occurs right before Secretary of State Antony Blinken's first visit to Beijing, which is scheduled for this weekend and is intended to try to find some common ground. Beijing and Washington have been talking about his impending arrival despite the fact that the trip has not yet been officially announced. It wasn't immediately obvious whether Blinken's travel plans would be affected by the balloon's discovery.

What the military was doing to stop it from gathering sensitive information was unclear, as well as what would happen to the balloon if it wasn't shot down. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, wrote to Austin on Thursday, expressing grave concern that Malmstrom Air Force Base and the US intercontinental ballistic missile fields may be the target of an intelligence gathering mission due to the balloon's presence in Montana airspace.

The spy balloon, according to the defence official, was attempting to fly over the missile fields in Montana, but the U.S. has determined that its value in giving China intelligence that it couldn't already gather through other channels, such as spy satellites, is "limited."

The official declined to say how big the balloon was but claimed that, despite being at a great height, commercial pilots could still see it. From 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, all air travel was suspended at Billings Logan International Airport in Montana as the military gave the White House options. According to Gazette photographer Larry Mayer, the balloon could be seen drifting in and out of the clouds and had what appeared to be a solar array hanging from the bottom.

According to a statement from the Republican governor and spokesperson Brooke Stroyke, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said he was briefed on the situation on Wednesday after the Montana National Guard was informed of an ongoing military operation taking place in Montana airspace.

The constant stream of worrying developments for our national security, according to Gianforte, "from the spy balloon to the Chinese Communist Party spying on Americans through TikTok to CCP-linked companies buying American farmland," he said in a statement.

"China's brazen disregard for U.S. sovereignty is a destabilizing action that must be addressed," tweeted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California. The South China Sea, Taiwan, the Xinjiang region in western China, the crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong, and many other issues are causing particularly high tensions with China.

Not least among these irritants are China's ongoing trade and technological disputes, its refusal to restrain North Korea's expanding ballistic missile program, and its covert support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In response to nearby operations by 34 Chinese military aircraft and nine warships, which are part of Beijing's strategy to unnerve and intimidate the self-governing island democracy, Taiwan scrambled fighter jets, put its navy on alert, and activated missile systems on Tuesday.

The central line in the Taiwan Strait, which has long served as an unofficial buffer zone between the two sides that split during a civil war in 1949, was crossed by twenty of those aircraft. Beijing has also intensified its plans for a possible blockade or military action against Taiwan, raising concerns among military chiefs, diplomats, and elected officials in the U.S., Taiwan's main ally.

Chase Doak reported seeing a "big white circle in the sky" from a Billings office window, but he claimed it was too small to be the moon. He snapped a few pictures, then hurried home to get a camera with a better lens so he could snap more pictures and videos. Doak claimed that although it appeared stationary to him for the 45 minutes he could see it, the video suggested it was slowly moving. He said, "I thought it might be a real UFO.