Chinese spy balloon capable of collecting communications signals: US

The Chinese spy balloon shot down by the US military over the Atlantic Ocean was capable of collecting communications signals and was part of a fleet of surveillance balloons directed by the Chinese military that had flown over more than 40 countries across continents, US State Department said on Thursday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told CBS News that the Pentagon acted to limit what the balloon could learn about US nuclear capabilities. Austin said Chinese balloons flew over parts of the US in previous years, passing over Texas and Florida.

“Certainly all of our strategic assets, we made sure were buttoned down and movement was limited and communications were limited so that we didn’t expose any capability unnecessarily,” Austin said.

An official said, on condition of anonymity, as quoted by Bloomberg, high-resolution imagery provided by U-2 spy planes that flew past the balloon revealed an array of surveillance equipment that was inconsistent with Beijing’s claim that the balloon was a weather device blown off course.

Earlier, China had said that the balloon was a weather device and was pushed by the wind and that it regrets that the airship strayed.

In a statement last Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the balloon a was civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research. The ministry said the airship has limited steering capabilities and “deviated far from its planned course” because of winds.

The disclosure of the balloon last week led to the postponement of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s long-planned trip to China as part of an effort to normalize ties between the world’s two largest economies. The balloon was shot down by an F-22 fighter off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.