USA accused this Wednesday China having been working for years in a “program” of spy balloons that have already flown over several regions, including Latin America, and pointed out that to date they are aware that five devices of this type have flown over their 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 claimed.
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.
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“The United States is not the only nation that has been affected by this. And we believe that it is important that our partners and allies have information about this”he asserted.
The United States shot down last Saturday a “spy balloon” Chinese aircraft that had been flying over several areas of the country for days, 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” on Latin America, something that the Chinese government admitted, but continued to maintain that this airship does not represent “no threat”.
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Kirby explained that the Joe Biden government determined that this airship was not “a military threat” for 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.
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).
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Without wanting to go into detail about which places these balloons flew over, he stated that they passed “for sites 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” It 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, had 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.
Source: EFE
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Source: Gestion
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