WASHINGTON – The United States has accused China of operating a global surveillance programme covering more than 40 countries in five continents.

Pentagon press secretary Patrick Ryder said on Wednesday that China’s surveillance balloons have been spotted over Central America, South America, South-east Asia, East Asia and Europe in the past several years.

State Department spokesman Ned Price was tight-lipped on Thursday about China’s targets.

He also declined to comment on how the US knew there were Chinese incursions over those territories, adding that he did not want to compromise intelligence sources and methods.

But The Washington Post, quoting US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, reported that Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines had been targeted.

So far, governments have not confirmed the presence of such surveillance balloons, although some are re-examining past instances of unidentified aerial objects over their lands.

North-east Asia

Tokyo said on Thursday that it was coordinating with Washington to analyse unidentified aerial objects that had been spotted over Japan in June 2020 and September 2021.

Chief government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said that the government had also spotted similar balloons whose affiliations were unknown, including in January 2022 over the sea west of Kyushu.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence dismissed claims on Friday that a spy balloon had been seen over the Presidential Palace in Taipei in September 2021.

The unidentified balloon had been 40km away from the Taiwan coast over the ocean, it said in a statement.

South-east Asia

The Philippine military said last Sunday that it could not confirm claims from a defence analyst that an unidentified flying object, which had been spotted flying over the northern province of Pangasinan, might have been a Chinese spy balloon.

Vietnam has not detected the presence of any Chinese balloons in its airspace, its Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

Latin America

Costa Rica said on Monday that China had apologised for a balloon that recently passed over its territory.

Chinese officials said that the balloon was focused on weather studies, but had deviated from its original flight path and had limited ability to correct its course, the Costa Rican government said in a statement.

A day earlier on Sunday, Colombia’s air force said that what appeared to be a balloon had been detected in the northern part of its airspace on the morning of Feb 3, although it did not specify the object’s origin.

Beijing said on Monday that its balloon had floated over Latin America and the Caribbean, adding that it had been used for flight tests.

• Additional reporting by Mara Cepeda, Walter Sim and Yip Wai Yee