The United States said Wednesday it was “in discussions with (its) allies and partners” about the “fleet” of spy balloons it said China has deployed around the world in recent years.
“Chinese balloons have been observed over countries on five continents” whose sovereignty they “violated,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
On Saturday, the United States shot down at sea a Chinese plane that was flying over its territory. US officials said the decision to wait before shooting it down had provided “a tremendous opportunity to better understand and study” the craft, whose passage through US territory captivated the country for several days.
Sharing information collected on the downed balloon
Washington has since assured that China was not on its first try, and that Beijing had sent three planes for brief forays into US skies during the presidency of Donald Trump, and already one at the beginning of Joe Biden’s term. China, for its part, strongly condemned the destruction of the balloon, said a “civilian aircraft used for research purposes, mainly meteorological”, which had “unintentionally” entered US airspace.
“It was an irresponsible act and in response we acted responsibly and prudently to protect our interests,” US Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken said Wednesday.
He recalled that the US army continued its work of collecting debris from the balloon off the coast of South Carolina, during a press conference in which he participated together with the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg.
Government officials report the collected information to Congress, as well as to dozens of countries around the world from Washington or through embassies, Anthony Blinken further specified. “We do this,” he said, “because the United States was not the only target of this vast program that violated the sovereignty of countries on five continents.”
Chinese espionage on the rise in Europe and Asia
Jens Stoltenberg, for his part, expressed the concern of NATO countries over China’s spying activities, noting that Beijing has invested massively in recent years to acquire new military capabilities.
“We have also seen an increase in spying activity from China in Europe. They are using satellites, the Internet and, as we saw in the United States, balloons,” he said, calling for “constant vigilance.”
According Washington Post, citing unnamed US officials, this Chinese spy program is run in part from the southern island of Hainan. Spy balloons have been used to monitor military sites in Japan, India and Taiwan, the newspaper adds.
In his “State of the Union” address on Tuesday night, the US president said the United States would not be intimidated by China, although he said he was not seeking conflict with Beijing.
Source: BFM TV
