Washington (EFE).- The US accused China this Wednesday of having been working for years on a “program” of spy balloons that have already flown over various regions, including Latin America, and noted that to date they are aware that Five devices of this type have flown over its territory.
This was explained by John Kirby, one of the White House spokesmen, in an appearance before the media at the foreign press center.
“This is a program that the Chinese have been working on for several years. They (the Chinese) have tried to improve it, they have made it grow and they have increased it, all with the aim of obtaining intelligence information, “he said.
Kirby announced that the US is speaking with its allies in the world to offer them information on the scope of this espionage program and, without giving many more details, indicated that new information on the matter will be released this Wednesday.
“The United States is not the only nation that has been affected by this. And we think it’s important that our partners and allies have information about this,” he said.
There was no military threat
The United States shot down last Saturday a Chinese “spy balloon” that had been flying for days over various areas of the country, such as the state of Montana (northeast), where one of the three existing nuclear missile silo fields on US territory is located.
China has admitted that the balloon belongs to it, but said it had been misplaced and is used for meteorological purposes, not espionage.
The US also announced last Friday that it had detected another “spy balloon” over Latin America, something that the Chinese government admitted, but continued to maintain that this airship does not represent “any threat.”
Asked by EFE about that balloon, Kirby explained that the Joe Biden government determined that this airship was not “a military threat” to the region, the same conclusion that the US intelligence services reached about the Chinese balloon that flew over the United States.
The aircraft has been detected over Costa Rica, Colombia and Venezuela, according to different sources.
Years of follow-up to the China program
From the Pentagon, Defense Department spokesman Pat Ryder said at a press conference on Wednesday that they have been following this Chinese program for years and that the US understanding of it has increased in the last two years.
He indicated that they are aware that, before the last balloon, there were four other similar Chinese devices that have passed over US territory, one prior during the Administration of President Joe Biden and another three during that of Donald Trump (2017-2021).
Without wanting to go into detail about which places these balloons flew over, he stated that they passed “through places that would be of interest to the Chinese.”
Ryder noted that other places where Chinese balloons have been sighted include Latin America, Southeast Asia, East Asia and Europe.
The discovery of these “spy balloons” has triggered a diplomatic crisis between the US and China and led to the suspension of a trip that the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, planned to make to the Asian country.
Ryder indicated that the Armed Forces continue with the recovery tasks of the Chinese balloon that they shot down on Saturday over the waters of South Carolina and specified that this airship was not detected by the US authorities until it approached the territory of the country.
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