The Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean in early February was built – at least partly – using American off-the-shelf parts, a U.S. official has confirmed to ABC News.
A second U.S. official was also able to confirm that the balloon did not appear to have transmitted any of the data it collected on its journey above North America, as was initially reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The first official could not say whether any of the American gear was sold illicitly to China but said determining whether any of it came from illegal trade was a topic of serious concern among officials since some items – like chips – are forbidden to sell to certain markets.
“ […] one of the officials and others in the Biden administration agree that the vessel likely traveled on a course operators didn’t originally intend.
They took advantage of the path they found themselves on,” one of the officials said. Biden said as much in remarks last week that mostly drew attention for his referring to Xi, China’s leader, as a dictator.
“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it is he didn’t know it was there”
So they took advantage of the balloon getting off it’s course or they did not even know it was in the US?
One dark night in the middle of the day,
two little dead boys came out to play.
They stood back to back to face each other.
They drew their swords and shot each other.