China says balloon ‘off course’

BEIJING: Another Chinese balloon floated over Latin America and the Caribbean, the Chinese government confirmed on Monday, adding that it was for civilian purposes and was being used for flight tests.

“Affected by the weather and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course and entered into the airspace of Latin America and the Caribbean,” a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, Mao Ning, said on Monday.

On Friday, before the US shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had spent the last week traversing the country, the Colombian National Air Defence System detected an object that had entered the northern part of the country’s airspace, the Colombian air force said. Officials determined that the object had “characteristics similar to those of a balloon”.

On Saturday, the US confirmed that a balloon was observed transiting Central and South America.

“These balloons are all part of a PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries,” Brig Gen Patrick S Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, told reporters, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

The Colombian air force said it had tracked the object until it left the country’s airspace.

On Sunday, the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, referring to the US decision to shoot down the balloon Friday, said the government “rejects the attack by the United States against a civilian unmanned aircraft of Chinese origin.”

Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro has recently proposed the establishment of a new bloc of Latin American and Caribbean countries and referred to Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia as each being an “older brother.”