Taiwan clarifies that it has not detected Chinese spy balloons in its airspace

TAIPEI, 14 Feb. (DPA/EP) –

The Ministry of Defense of Taiwan has affirmed this Tuesday that its surveillance systems have never detected Chinese spy balloons and that the devices that have been sighted were only for scientific purposes, specifically for meteorological observation.

A military official from the Ministry, Wen Chi Huang, explained to the media that “this type of balloons that float freely (without a propulsion system) in the troposphere, detected in the surroundings of Taiwan, cannot carry out intelligence tasks.”

Taipei thus comes out of the information published by the ‘Financial Times’ and which, based on anonymous Taiwanese government sources, recognized the sighting of dozens of Chinese military aircraft. Huang has clarified that none of the detected objects posed a threat.

Likewise, he has defended the commitment of the Taiwanese authorities with the observation of this type of objects. “We have closely monitored all flying objects in nearby areas or in our airspace,” she added.