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, PRC surveillance balloons have flown over our airspace. I will say that, based on all the evidence we have, this happened for brief periods of time, nothing like what we saw last week. in terms of duration,” he said, in a meeting with the press.
The presence of these Chinese balloons in US airspace was detected during the administration of current US President Joe Biden under circumstances that Kirby declined to disclose, and it was not clear whether Trump was informed in the time the balloons entered US airspace during his tenure. presidency.
“I cannot speak of the awareness that there was in the previous government regarding these events. I can tell you that we discovered these flights after we came to power and I am not going to go into details about how we did it,” he added.
Taking to social media, Trump said Sunday that no Chinese “spy balloons” had flown over the United States during his presidency.
“Now they are posting that China sent a balloon during the Trump Administration, to take the pressure off Biden’s slow fools,” the former US head of state said, 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 government communicated “with senior officials of the previous government,” offered them briefings on the analyzes it carried out, and expressed the intention of “showing” them what it had learned. .
Kirby did not indicate whether or not those officials had accepted the invitation, though he did confirm that “those briefings have not yet taken place.”
“This whole program from China is not new. It’s something they’ve been working on for many years and trying to improve on,” he explained.
Trump and other figures from the Republican Party have criticized in recent days the slowness of the Biden government in eliminating the balloon.
Shortly after, last Thursday, when it became known of its existence, Trump demanded that it be shot down, despite the fact that the Pentagon had recommended that it not be done until the device flew over the sea, so that debris would not fall on people. on earth.
After shooting down the Chinese device on Saturday, the United States has already recovered the first remains, John Kirby said, stressing that there is no intention 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 surface of the sea,” Kirby told reporters, adding that “weather conditions” had not allowed the investigations to be carried out. operations. until now submarines to recover the rest of the material.
John Kirby indicated, on the other hand, that the United States “has no intention of delivering” the remains of the collected objects to China.
Although President Biden was criticized by the Republican opposition for taking too long to bring down the device, the spokesperson said that this period of time gave Americans “a tremendous opportunity to study and better understand” the globe, hoping that its the rubble will provide more information.
He also assured that the United States had “taken measures to restrict the collection capabilities [de dados] to which the balloon would have had access over sensitive military installations” in the country.
Source: TSF
