Dem Rep. Smith on Spy Balloon: I’d Be ‘Stunned’ if China Hadn’t Done Similar Before, But Flying over U.S. Airspace Is ‘Increasingly Reckless’

On Saturday’s “CNN Newsroom,” House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) stated that he would be shocked if China hadn’t done something similar to its behavior with the spy balloon, but that “flying something directly over U.S. airspace, that I think is a far more rare event. I don’t, off the top of my head, know of a precedent.”

Host Jim Acosta asked, “[W]hat about the notion…that, oh, this happens all the time, that nations spy on one another, we fly surveillance satellites and all sorts of things over countries and they do it to us — I would assume — from time to time? And what about the possibility that China has done this in the past, do we know that for a fact that this has been done in the past, we just didn’t know about it?”

Smith responded, “Well, I can’t reveal anything in that regard except to say I would be stunned if China hadn’t done similar things in the past. But, again, it’s more about the overall behavior of China than it is about this one incident. It is the brazen and reckless behavior as they’ve tried to throw their weight around in Asia and across the world. But look, when you’re talking about the efforts of countries to spy on each other, I mean, people know enough of the history to know that that goes on a lot. Now, flying something directly over U.S. airspace, that I think is a far more rare event. I don’t, off the top of my head, know of a precedent. So, it — again, it speaks to the increasingly reckless behavior that China is engaged in and the importance of us working with the rest of the world to try to get them to stop and be a more productive partner in the world.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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