Sullivan pressing military, administration officials on Chinese spy balloon incursion

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Saturday, February 4th, 2023 6:09pm

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Anchorage, Alaska (KINY) - U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Saturday released the following statement after a Chinese spy balloon was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina Saturday afternoon.

“I want to commend the skilled airmen who safely executed the mission to finally take down the Chinese spy balloon," Sullivan said. “I have already begun pressing our senior military leaders and Biden administration officials on why this surveillance balloon was allowed to operate for so long over our country, and what consequences the Chinese Communist Party will face for this brazen violation of American sovereignty."

“The 11th Air Force in Alaska does an exceptional job of detecting, intercepting, and keeping adversarial aircraft, like Russian bear bombers, out of Alaska air space on a regular basis. We need to know why a Chinese spy asset was allowed to breach sovereign American airspace," he said. "This cannot become a precedent for further Chinese Communist Party aggression.”

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