Chinese spy balloon incident: What's known 1 year later

LOS ANGELES - Feb. 4 marks the one-year anniversary the U.S. Air Force downed the infamous Chinese spy balloon which floated above parts of Alaska and the continental U.S. 

The craft floated at an altitude low enough to be seen with the naked eye, alarming millions of Americans across the country. 

The surveillance balloon was shot down into the Atlantic near the coast of South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach. 

China says it was blown out of proportion

Beijing continues to insist the balloon was a civilian object and in no way related to the nation's espionage program. 

China said the balloon was mainly used for meteorological research and went off course due to winds and limited steering capabilities. 

Despite downplaying the importance of the balloon, China threatened retaliation. 

In a statement after the craft was shot down, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the use of force by the U.S. was "an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice. It added: "China will resolutely uphold the relevant company’s legitimate rights and interests and at the same time reserving the right to take further actions in response."

It was definitely a spy balloon, US says

Back in June 2023, the Pentagon said that whatever information the balloon captured was not successfully sent back to Beijing. 

But the U.S. said that it was a spy balloon without a doubt. 

Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters at a press conference that while the device had surveillance capabilities, "it has been our assessment now that [the balloon] did not collect while it was transiting the United States."

"As we said at the time, we also took steps to mitigate the potential efforts of that balloon," Ryder said.

GOP lawmaker demands answers

In Dec. 2023, Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., whose district the balloon was shot down in, introduced legislation to force the Defense Department to submit a report to Congress describing what kind of data was picked up about sensitive U.S. military sites and an analysis of the technology used to build the aircraft and where it came from.

"The Biden administration sat on their hands and let this spy balloon freely fly across the country before shooting it down off the coast of my hometown of Surfside Beach, putting our country’s national security at risk and projecting weakness on the world stage," Fry told Fox News Digital Tuesday. 

"Almost a year later, we still don’t know the consequences of this administration’s lack of action," he added.

The report would be due 90 days from the date the proposed Chinese Spy Balloon Assessment Act would become law.

That wasn't the only one

Weeks leading up to a contentious election in Taiwan in January, 2023, the island's Defense Ministry said they spotted two Chinese balloon flying in the northern region of the country. 

The balloons crossed the sensitive Taiwan Strait separating the island from China and were detected about 110 nautical miles (204 kilometers) northwest of the northern port city of Keelung on Sunday, the ministry said.

It was the second time that month Taiwan reported a Chinese balloon near its territory, after one crossed southwest of Keelung on Dec. 7.

Taiwan split from China amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing continues to regard the island of 23 million with its high-tech economy as Chinese territory and has been steadily upping its threat to achieve that goal by military force if necessary.

The Associated Press and FOX News contributed to this story.