Washington has accused China of sending spy balloons across five continents

White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that China has in recent years deployed a “fleet of balloons for spying around the world.”

White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre told a White House briefing Wednesday that “Chinese balloons are on five continents” and that they are “a violation of national sovereignty.”

As China has sent spy balloons around the world in recent years, the spokesman said the US was consulting with “Allies and partners”.

U.S. President Joe Biden made it clear in his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday that the U.S. will not tolerate the threat from China, days after a giant Chinese balloon intruding into U.S. skies was destroyed by a U.S. warplane, in an intensifying U.S. -China dispute. But he added that the United States was not seeking conflict with Beijing either.

“As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act as we have done before to defend our nation,” Biden told lawmakers.

The Chinese balloon that entered US airspace was deemed a “spy balloon” and hovered over the US for a week before being shot down by a US warplane. China said it was of a “civilian nature” and mainly used for “meteorological research”, accusing the US of overdoing it.

But U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that recently invaded the U.S. mainland was part of a vast surveillance program run by the Chinese military.

The link between the balloon and the People’s Liberation Army was reported by the Washington Post on February 7 and later confirmed by US cable news network CNN. The balloon belonged to a fleet of unmanned airships controlled by the military authorities in south China’s Hainan province. The airship fleet is operated by the PLA Air Force.

The US side also announced that another Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon was flying over Latin America. Shortly after an F-22 shot down the balloon on Feb. 4, China acknowledged that it had also launched the balloon, which appeared over Latin America at about the same time. China apologized to Costa Rica, but refused to apologize to the United States.

Washington also said after the shooting down of the balloon that it was not the first time China had launched balloons at the United States, having briefly entered American airspace three times during the Trump administration and another in the early days of the Biden administration