Chinese balloon part of worldwide programme, US officials say

The US believes a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was changeable down implicit its territory is portion of a wider fleet that has spanned 5 continents.

"The United States was not the lone people of this broader programme," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

He added that the US had shared accusation gathered from the balloon debris with dozens of different countries.

China has denied the balloon was being utilized for spying purposes, and says it was a upwind instrumentality blown astray.

US officials person described the balloon arsenic being astir 200 ft (60m) tall, with the payload information comparable successful size to determination airliners and weighing hundreds - oregon perchance thousands - of pounds.

It was changeable down by a combatant pitchy implicit the South Carolina seashore connected Saturday, a determination that acceptable disconnected a diplomatic situation and prompted Secretary Blinken to instantly telephone disconnected a travel to China - the archetypal specified precocious level US-China gathering determination successful years.

Citing unnamed officials, the Washington Post reported that the US believes the suspected surveillance balloon task was being operated from China's coastal Hainan state and targeted countries including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines.

At a Wednesday quality conference, Defence Department spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder confirmed that the US believed akin balloons had operated implicit North and South America, South-East Asia, East Asia and Europe.

"We've learned a batch astir these balloons and however to way them," Gen Ryder said, adding that the US was present assured it had the quality to beryllium "on the look-out for these kinds of capabilities".

He said portion the objects were each utilized for surveillance missions, determination were "variations" successful presumption of their size and capabilities.

The US believes that balloons person operated implicit US territory connected astatine slightest 4 occasions, but Gen Ryder did not springiness further item connected these instances.

Washington briefed 40 allied countries astir the alleged espionage programme earlier this week, a elder Biden medication confirmed to CBS News, the BBC's US partner.

Naval and Coast Guard ships and divers are inactive searching for debris from the balloon. It is unclear what quality the US has truthful acold gleaned from the remnants, though experts accidental that the debris could assistance officials amended recognize what the balloon was susceptible of and however it transmitted information.