OAN’s Roy Francis
10:28 AM – Thursday, June 29, 2023
The Chinese spy balloon that had flown across the United States before being shot down by the military in February reportedly carried American technology.
The American technology used by the spy balloon was used to conduct surveillance by capturing photos and videos which were intended to be sent back to Beijing according to the Wall Street Journal. However, officials claimed that the captured information was not successfully transmitted to China before the balloon was shot down.
China had claimed that the balloon was a weather balloon which had been blown off course. However, an investigation by U.S. intelligence agencies found that the balloon was used for spying. The findings were supported by the analysis of the balloon’s contents.
According to the Washington Journal, analysis of the balloon, conducted by several intelligence agencies that included the FBI, found that the content of balloon included commercially available American equipment that was used in conjunction with more advanced Chinese equipment which was used to transmit information back to Beijing. Although no further details on the equipment was provided.
Officials in the Biden administration have claimed that the Chinese spy mission had failed but did not specify why. However, this report by the officials is contradictory to a confirmed NBC story in April which quoted senior government officials who had claimed that the balloon had collected data from sensitive military sites and successfully transmitted back to Beijing in real time.
The Chinese balloon had flown across the United States from Alaska to the East Coast before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina over the Atlantic Ocean on February 4th.
The incident had raised tensions between China and the United States at a time where the relationship between the two nations was already deteriorating.
In June, President Joe Biden said that the incident was more embarrassing for Chinese President Xi Jinping because they did not know the location of the balloon or what was happening.
“I don’t think the leadership knew where it was and knew what was in it and knew what was going on,” Biden told reporters. “It was, I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional. And so, I’m hoping that, over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have but also how there’s areas we can get along.”
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