The People’s Liberation Army uses balloons to collect military information from countries of interest to it, according to the US
The intelligence services of the United States have linked the alleged Chinese spy balloon shot down last Saturday with a large surveillance program orchestrated by the Chinese Army, which is why it has warned its allies about Chinese maneuvers.
In addition to the United States, China would have flown surveillance balloons over military assets in countries and areas of emerging strategic interest to the Asian giant, including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan or the Philippines, according to senior US officials told The Washington newspaper. Post’.
The United States authorities consulted have affirmed that the aircraft, operated by the People’s Liberation Army, have been detected on five continents.
“What the Chinese have done is take incredibly old technology and basically put it together with modern communications and observation capabilities,” all for the sake of obtaining intelligence on the Armed Forces of other nations, according to an official in the aforementioned newspaper.
In this regard, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman led a briefing on Monday with 40 US embassies detailing what information on Chinese espionage they can share with allies and partners, including countries like Japan.
The US military shot down a Chinese balloon over things in South Carolina on Saturday days after it was detected flying over US airspace. The delay in taking it down has sparked criticism of the Joe Biden Administration from Republicans.
For its part, the Government of China confirmed on Friday that the balloon located by the US authorities in the airspace of the North American country was its property, although it qualified its “civilian nature” and its purpose for “scientific research.”
A second Chinese balloon was located on Friday over Latin America, a sighting confirmed by the Colombian Air Force and which led Costa Rica to send its complaints to the Chinese government. Meanwhile, the spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, indicated that this second balloon would have entered “by mistake” into the airspace of several countries, insisting that Beijing respects International Law and “does not represent any threat to any country”. .