According to them, before the balloon entered US airspace, the Pentagon had monitored it for almost a week, from the time it took off from Hainan Island. Of note, the balloon flew over the Aleutian Islands, then patrolled over Canada, where it “collided into a strong wind, which apparently blew the aircraft south into the mainland. the United States”.
Based on the new data, the newspaper’s interlocutors noted that the tension between the United States and China caused by this incident was partly the result of a mistake.
The article also reports that the crossing of US airspace by a PRC balloon was in itself a violation of their sovereignty, but Washington’s irritation was intensified by the fact that the plane flew over nuclear facilities. secrets of Montana for a while. The United States believes that even if the balloon veered off course and hit the sky over the United States by accident, Beijing could then “seize the opportunity” and try to collect sensitive US intelligence.
Remember that the story of the Chinese ball took place at the beginning of February. The US military discovered a balloon in the northern United States that crossed the entire country and was only shot down over the Atlantic. It turned out that the ball belongs to China. In Beijing, they said the probe was meteorological and lost course due to a strong gust of wind.
