Washington, DC, April 3, 2018 - The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden stated on Monday that it was still doing analysis and could not corroborate rumors that China was able to get real-time data from a spy balloon as it sailed over important military locations earlier this year.
According to NBC News, the Chinese balloon was able to communicate data back to Beijing in real time despite efforts by the US administration to stop it from doing so. This information might increase Republican criticism of Biden for not shooting down the balloon until it reached a safe zone.
One former senior administration official and two current senior U.S. officials were named by NBC.
Reporters were informed by the White House and the Pentagon that they were unable to validate this claim. The Pentagon said that specialists were still examining the balloon's debris after it was shot down on February 4.
Pentagon spokesman Sabrina Singh stated, "I could not confirm that there was real-time communication from the balloon back to (China) at this time," adding, "that's something we're examining right now."
Reuters' request for comment was not immediately answered by either the Chinese Embassy in Washington or the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing.
The U.S. military shot the balloon down off the Atlantic Coast on Biden's instructions after it spent a week flying over the United States and Canada, which China claims was a government surveillance craft.
According to Reuters, US authorities think China was in charge of the high-altitude balloon as it passed over the country, occasionally guiding it left or right.
Nevertheless, at the time, US officials downplayed the balloon's influence on national security, claiming that it had taken precautions to limit its capacity to gather data on important American facilities. Although conceding the balloon's capacity to linger longer above US areas than a satellite, it also downplayed the claim that it was far more capable of gathering information than Chinese espionage satellites.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a trip to Beijing due to the Chinese balloon incident, which further strained ties between Washington and Beijing.The incident created a commotion in Washington and prompted the American military to scan the sky for further objects that were not being picked up by radar.
Since the United States announced on February 17 that recovery attempts to gather sensors and other debris from the alleged Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina had been successful, the FBI has assumed the lead in analysis.
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