The US assures that the Chinese balloon had antennas to intercept communications signals

The Pentagon sent a report to the United States Congress a few weeks ago in which it said that the registry of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (FANI, for its acronym in Spanish) had skyrocketed and that many appeared to be balloons and drones.

And it warned that the authorities were "investigating any evidence of possible involvement of foreign governments" in these new UFOs.

After the detection of a Chinese balloon that crossed the United States last week, the State Department assures that surveillance devices from Beijing have flown over more than 40 countries on five continents.

In addition, it affirms that the Chinese balloon was equipped with instruments apparently capable of intercepting and geolocating communication signals, without specifying what type.

The US Navy continues the search, with unmanned underwater vehicles, for the remains of the balloon, shot down last Saturday over the Atlantic by an F-22 off the coast of South Carolina.

China defends itself and maintains that it was a civilian weather balloon with scientific research functions.

The State Department has responded Thursday that the high-resolution images it has taken of the balloon show equipment clearly designed for intelligence functions and that they do not correspond to the instruments of weather balloons.

It features multiple antennas capable of intercepting communications and solar panels large enough to generate power to power intelligence data collection sensors.

In addition, Washington assures that the company that manufactures the balloon, whose name has not been revealed, maintains ties with the Chinese Army and that it is considering taking action against the entities linked to the incursion into US airspace.

The State Department explains that the manufacturing company shows on its website videos of past flights, apparently over the United States and other countries.

The incident has soured relations between Beijing and Washington.

Following the sighting, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off a trip to China, where he planned to arrive on Sunday.

And US President Joe Biden warned Tuesday during his State of the Union address: "If China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country."

After receiving a visit from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Blinken explained on Wednesday that they are analyzing the remains "to learn more about the surveillance program."

“We will combine it with what we know about the balloon itself and what we have learned from our careful observation of the system when it was in our airspace,” he said.

“We have already shared information with dozens of countries around the world, both from Washington and through our embassies.

We do it because the United States was not the only target of this broader program that has violated the sovereignty of countries on five continents,” he added.

The Pentagon has also signaled that it hopes to analyze the wreckage in more detail, but says tracking the balloon has already allowed it to draw some conclusions.

"This past week provided the United States with a unique opportunity to learn much more about China's surveillance balloon program, information that will help us continue to strengthen our tracking capabilities for these types of objects," the US General said Wednesday. Brigade Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, in an appearance before the media.

"The fact that we know these balloons have been sighted now allows us to assess that they are Chinese balloons operating over at least five continents in regions including Latin America, Southeast Asia, East Asia and Europe," Ryder added, declining to provide details. about specific locations, taking refuge in secrecy before some of the questions: "I can not enter the intelligence data."

The Pentagon assures that there have been four previous balloons that have flown over US territory as part of a Chinese program that has been running for several years, three during the presidency of Donald Trump and another with that of Biden.

“This is what we are evaluating as part of a larger Chinese surveillance balloon program,” Ryder said.

And he tried to balance the seemingly contradictory positions of the past week, when he initially argued that several Chinese balloons were detected during Donald Trump's presidency and then backed down.

"While some of these balloons had not been previously identified, subsequent intelligence analysis allowed us to indicate that they were Chinese balloons," he said Wednesday, without elaborating.

Taiwanese intelligence sources cited by

maintain that Chinese military scientists have been looking for ways to make balloons more resistant, difficult to detect and that can even serve as platforms for firing advanced weapons.

China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and the island is the hottest point of friction between Washington and Beijing, though the two superpowers' rivalry has spilled over into economic and technological realms.

Biden also touched on that rivalry in his speech on Tuesday: “I have made it clear to President Xi [Jinping] that we seek competition, not conflict.

I will not apologize for investing to make America strong, investing in American innovation, in future-defining industries that the Chinese government seeks to dominate."

The United States has imposed restrictions on the export of its most advanced microprocessors to China and is considering ways to tighten that technology embargo to prevent advanced American products from being put to military use.

Investigators from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are analyzing whether the remains of the Chinese balloon show that it used American or other Western technology.

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