Chinese spy balloon may have been blown off intended course – report

US officials who tracked balloon from launch on Hainan island reportedly examining possibility that unusual weather took it over North America

The US is reportedly examining the possibility that the Chinese spy balloon was pushed off course by strong winds when it entered US airspace, having tracked it since its launch days earlier.

Of the four flying objects shot down by the US in recent weeks, only the first has been attributed to Chinese surveillance efforts. The balloon took off from China’s Hainan island, before travelling on a path which appeared to go over Guam, according to the Washington Post on Tuesday. It then took an “unexpected” turn to the north, the report said, citing anonymous US officials. After it entered Canadian airspace, strong winds blew it south over the border, the Post reported.

The deviation has prompted analysts to explore whether China meant for it to enter US airspace. US officials remain adamant the balloon’s purpose was surveillance.

The possibility emerged as the White House said on Tuesday that preliminary evidence suggested the three latest objects detected were “benign” and not involved in a broader Chinese spy balloon program.

US authorities “haven’t seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of [China’s] spy balloon program or that they were definitely involved in external intelligence,” national security council spokesperson John Kirby said.

The saga has caused further deterioration of fragile China-US relations and prompted urgent reassessments of security and surveillance by US allies, including Japan. Tokyo’s defence ministry announced late on Tuesday that a new analysis of unidentified aerial objects that flew over Japan’s airspace in recent years “strongly” suggests they were Chinese spy balloons.

“After further analysis of specific balloon-shaped flying objects previously identified in Japanese airspace, including those in November 2019, June 2020 and September 2021, we have concluded that the balloons are strongly presumed to be unmanned reconnaissance balloons flown by China,” the ministry said in a statement.

It said it had “strongly demanded China’s government confirm the facts” of the incident and “that such a situation not occur again in the future.”

“Violations of airspace by foreign unmanned reconnaissance balloons and other means are totally unacceptable,” it added.

Japan said last week it was re-analysing a series of incidents involving unidentified aerial objects in light of the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down by the United States after crossing over US territory.

US officials have claimed that China has a “fleet” of surveillance balloons of different shapes and sizes, which it have been deployed over five continents.

China insists the balloon was a “civilian airship used for research”, US officials said debris confirmed it was designed for surveillance.

“We’re not alone in this,” US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said last week. “We’ve already shared information with dozens of countries around the world both from Washington and through our embassies. We’re doing so because the United States was not the only target of this broader programme which has violated the sovereignty of countries across five continents.”

Japanese officials confirmed that they were among those with whom the US had been exchanging data.

In the wake of the incident, the US military adjusted radar settings to detect smaller objects and discovered three more unidentified craft that President Joe Biden ordered shot down – one over Alaska, another over Canada and the third over Lake Huron off Michigan.

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