At least three Chinese balloons flew over the United States during Donald Trump’s term as president (2017-2021), White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday.
“On at least three occasions, the surveillance balloons of the People’s Republic of China have flown through our skies. I will say that, according to all the evidence we have, this has happened for short periods of time, nothing like what we saw last week, in terms of duration “, he said during a meeting with the press.
The presence of these Chinese balloons in US airspace was discovered during the administration of current US President Joe Biden, in circumstances Kirby declined to disclose, and it was not clear that Trump was informed at the time the balloons entered US airspace. entered. presidency.
“I cannot speak to the awareness that there was in the previous government about these facts. I can tell you that we discovered these flights after we came to power and I will not go into details of how we did it,” added he to it.
Trump announced on social media on Sunday that no Chinese “spy balloon” has flown over the United States during his presidency.
“Now they publish that China sent a balloon during the Trump administration, to take off the existing pressure on Biden’s slow fools,” the former US head of state noted, adding that China has “too much respect” for him, Trump that this could have happened.
According to Kirby, after the detection of Chinese balloons in North American airspace, the current administration “communicated with senior officials of the previous administration”, offered informational sessions about the analyzes it had conducted and expressed its intention to “provide them show” what has been learned.
Kirby did not specify whether or not those officials had accepted the invitation, though he did confirm that “those briefings have not yet taken place.”
“This whole China program is not new. It’s something they’ve been working on for many years and trying to improve,” he explained.
Trump and other figures in the Republican Party have criticized the Biden administration’s slowness in eliminating the balloon in recent days.
Shortly after, last Thursday, when it became known of its existence, Trump demanded that it be shot down, despite the Pentagon recommending that it not be done until the device had flown over the sea so as not to drop debris on people on it. earth would fall.
After the downing of the Chinese jet on Saturday, the United States has already recovered the first wreckage, John Kirby said, stressing that it does not intend to return it to China.
The teams deployed off the coast of South Carolina, in the southeast of the country, “recovered some debris that was on the sea surface,” Kirby told the press, adding that the “weather conditions” did not allow operations to be carried out. allowed. until now submarines to recover the rest of the material.
John Kirby, on the other hand, indicated that the United States “does not intend to deliver the remains of the collected objects” to China.
While President Biden has been criticized by the Republican opposition for taking too long to bring down the device, the spokesman assured that this period presented Americans with “a formidable opportunity to better study and understand the balloon.” hoping that this debris will provide more information.
He also assured that the United States had taken “measures to limit collection capacity [de dados] to which the balloon would have had access over sensitive military installations” in the country.
Source: DN
