THE US HAS recovered important sensor and electronics parts from a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon it shot down earlier this month, the country’s military has said.

“Crews have been able to recover significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces identified as well as large sections of the structure,” the US Northern Command said in a statement.

China insists the balloon, which spent several days flying over North America, was an errant weather observation aircraft with no military purpose, but the United States says it was a sophisticated high-altitude spying vehicle that is part of a program with global reach.

A US F-22 Raptor fighter jet shot it down off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, and teams have since been working to recover the debris for analysis.

American warplanes have downed three other objects since then – one near Alaska, another over Canada and a third over Lake Huron – but authorities have not identified their origin or purpose.

According to the US government, the first of the four objects – a sophisticated, high-altitude balloon shot down on February 4 off the coast of South Carolina – was part of an ongoing, global “fleet” of Chinese espionage balloons.

As for another high-altitude balloon spotted in Latin America, China says that was a civilian flight test device.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the US is “not flying surveillance balloons over China”.

“I’m not aware of any other craft that we’re flying over into Chinese airspace,” he said.

The events are fueling already intense suspicion about China across both the Democratic and Republican parties.

The diplomatic fallout has already been substantial, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken abruptly cancelling a rare visit to Beijing.

China’s accusations of US spying prompted National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson to allege that Beijing has a high-altitude spying program that has violated the airspace of “40 countries across five continents.”

The State Department said China was “scrambling to do damage control” and that the communist government “has failed to offer any credible explanations for its intrusion into our airspace”.

But over the weekend, Chinese state-affiliated media reported that an unidentified flying object had been spotted off the country’s east coast and that the military was preparing to shoot it down.

- © AFP 2023