Watch: Moment Chinese ‘spy balloon’ is shot down over Carolina
Chinese spy balloons “drifted past Hawaii” and “across Florida” during Donald Trump’s presidency, according to a US military document.
The report, dated April 2022 and partially accessed by CNN, includes accounts of how Chinese balloons “circumnavigated the globe” in 2019.
The former president had earlier scoffed at the Pentagon’s claims that there were three separate incidents of balloons flying over the US during his presidency, saying Beijing had “too much respect” for him to have carried out such activity.
The spat comes after president Joe Biden ordered a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon to be shot down once it moved off the South Carolina coastline and over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday.
Beijing claims it was a weather monitoring device that went astray.
Mr Biden defended his administration’s response as divers on Monday began recovering debris from the sea where the balloon was shot down.
“We’ve made it clear to China what we’re going to do,” the president said. “They understand our position. We’re not going to back off, we did the right thing.”
