The US has no doubt that China was trying to spy on the US using the balloon that was ultimately shot down off the coast of South Carolina earlier this month, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
In an interview aired on Saturday with ABC’s “This Week,” Blinken stated, “I can’t say with certainty what the initial goal was, but that doesn’t matter because what we saw when it was over the United States was definitely an attempt to surveil highly sensitive military locations.”
“Several of them were covered by the balloon. That occasionally lingered, he continued. “We took precautions to keep that information secure. We took action to learn more about the balloon. And I believe we’ll learn more once we actually receive the remains.
According to President Joseph Biden, three considerably smaller objects that the US military shot down after shooting down the alleged Chinese spy balloon are now thought to not have been connected to any nation’s surveillance program. Instead, it’s possible that private organizations exploited them for research or weather-related purposes.
In contrast, the Chinese balloon, according to US officials, was equipped with a payload the size of almost three buses that could gather signals intelligence and take pictures. According to officials, the balloon passed over key locations in Montana, but the administration claims to have tracked the balloon’s route and made efforts to limit its capacity for gathering intelligence.
The balloon, according to the US, was a component of a sizable fleet commanded by the Chinese military that has recently performed surveillance over at least 40 nations on five continents.
