The Pentagon has assessed the suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew over Canada and the mainland United States early this year did not collect any information during its voyage, the U.S. Defense Department’s spokesperson said Thursday.
Press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters that although the balloon had “information collection capabilities” that could have also transmitted sensitive materials to Beijing, it appears no data was actually gathered.
“It has been our assessment now that it did not collect (information) while it was transiting the United States,” he told reporters.
At the time the balloon was flying over the mainland U.S., Pentagon officials took steps to protect sensitive information from being viewed or captured by the balloon.
“We believe that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or flying over the United States, and certainly the efforts we made contributed (to that),” Ryder added.
The balloon entered North American airspace in late January, flying across Alaska and then over Yukon and central British Columbia before crossing into the mainland U.S. in early February.
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It then transited across several states before U.S. President Joe Biden ordered military jets to shoot the balloon down off the coast of the Carolinas on Feb. 4. Debris was then collected and analysed by U.S. agencies, including the Pentagon and the CIA, to determine if any data was collected or transmitted to China.
The Canadian government, which also took steps to protect sensitive information, has not said if any data was gathered when the balloon flew over western Canada, referring to the U.S.-led investigation. Global News has reached out to the Department of National Defence for comment on the Pentagon’s latest assessment.
Earlier this year, U.S. media reports claimed China was able to collect real-time data from the spy balloon as it flew over sensitive military sites. Both NBC News and CNN cited current and former U.S. officials.
At the time, the White House and the Pentagon said they could not confirm those reports, pointing to the analysis that was still underway.
The Pentagon’s assessment Thursday came in response to new reports from the Wall Street Journal and ABC News that the Chinese spy balloon was built with at least some American-made off-the-shelf parts, raising questions about how those parts were obtained.
Ryder did not confirm the reports but did say that the Pentagon is “aware in previous cases — for example, things like drones and other capabilities, what have you — where off-the-shelf commercial U.S. components have been used in capabilities.”
“So that in and of itself is not surprising,” he added when asked about the reports.
The Chinese spy balloon incident prompted NORAD to closely scrutinize North American airspace for signs of other foreign airborne objects. That led military jets to shoot down three more unidentified objects: one over Alaska on Feb. 10, another over Yukon on Feb. 11, and a third over Lake Huron on Feb. 12.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe the three objects did not come from China or are tied to any other foreign surveillance operation, and are most likely “benign” private commercial or research balloons. Search operations for all three objects were called off due to difficult weather conditions.
As for the balloon shot down Feb. 4, China denied the balloon had intelligence-gathering capabilities, calling it a benign weather balloon.
Yet the incident further soured relations between Washington and Beijing, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken delaying a planned trip to China in February that was aimed at resetting the increasingly acrimonious relationship between the two superpowers.
Blinken ultimately made the trip earlier this month, which was quickly overshadowed when Biden called Chinese President Xi Jinping a “dictator,” angering Beijing just after Blinken’s trip concluded on relatively good terms.
Biden brought up the balloon incident during those remarks, which were made at a 2024 re-election fundraiser.
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