US fighter jet shoots down unidentified object over Canada; US blacklists six Chinese entities over Chinese spy balloon case

In less than a week, U.S. fighter jets brought down an unidentified object over frozen waters around Alaska at the order of President Joe Biden, said the Pentagon in a statement.

U.S. officials said they could not immediately confirm whether the object was a balloon or something else, but it was traveling at an altitude that made it a potential threat to civilian aircraft. This episode has increased tensions between Washington and Beijing.

At a news conference on Friday, John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Biden ordered the unidentified object near Alaska downed “out of an abundance of caution.”

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also claimed that an unidentified object spotted and shot down that was flying high over the Yukon, acting a day after the U.S. took similar action over Alaska.

On the other hand, the United States has blacklisted six Chinese entities it said were linked to Beijing’s aerospace programs as part of its retaliation over an alleged Chinese spy balloon that entered U.S. airspace.

The move is likely to further escalate the diplomatic row between the U.S. and China sparked by the balloon, which was shot down last weekend off the Carolina coast.

The U.S. said the balloon was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals, but Beijing insists it was a weather craft that had blown off course.