White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed that the Chinese spy balloon is linked to intelligence collection.
While addressing a press conference, Kirby said, “China has a high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that’s connected to the People’s Liberation Army.”
Further adding he said that the Chinese spy balloon program targeted the United States’ “closest allies and partners,” but provided “limited additive” intelligence collection capabilities.
“We assess at this time these balloons have provided limited additive capabilities to the PRC’s other intelligence platforms used over the United States,” Kirby said at the White House briefing.
“We know that these PRC surveillance balloons have crossed over dozens of countries including some of our allies and partners. We assessed that at this time these balloons have provided limited value to PRC’s other intelligence platforms but could become more valuable in future,” added Kirby.
He also confirmed that the US does not yet know who owns the recently shot-down unidentified objects.
