Military observers in Taiwan discovered two Chinese balloons — similar to the spy balloons that invaded U.S. airspace this year — flying over their territory for the second time in a month, according to reports.
The balloons flew from China and over the Taiwan Strait on Sunday and made a path to the north of the island nation, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said, according to ABC News.
China has flown these balloons over Europe, the United States, South America and Taiwan, yet it has steadfastly maintained they are just engaged in benign weather data gathering — an extremely dubious claim.
Another Chinese balloon crossed southwest of Keelung on Dec. 7, the Defense Ministry said.
The balloons Sunday reached an altitude of 27,000 feet, went east and disappeared at 9:36 a.m. and 4:35 p.m. local time, the ministry said, according to NBC News.
Two PRC’s balloons were detected yesterday after crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait at the location 110 nautical miles NW of Keelung and altitude of approximately 27,000 feet. The balloons headed east and disappeared at 09:36 and 16:35 respectively.
— 國防部 Ministry of National Defense, R.O.C.
(@MoNDefense) December 18, 2023
(@MoNDefense) Taiwan’s Defense Ministry avoided describing the balloons as part of a spy operation, officially calling them “weather balloons.”
China’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the incidents, NBC News reported.
But the balloon sightings come just ahead of Taiwan’s presidential election, which is scheduled for Jan. 13.
The front-runner is the Democratic Progressive Party’s William Lai, who openly favors the independence of Taiwan from the Chinese mainland.
It’s a position that the Chinese have denounced as “separatist” because China claims that Taiwan is Chinese territory even though it split from China in 1949 and has been self-governing ever since.
Americans are very familiar with Chinese spy balloons, even though the Biden administration worked assiduously to hide the fact that they were used for espionage.
The balloon that became a national fascination was first reported floating over the United States on Feb. 2.
The Biden administration let it go wherever the Chinese directed it to go over U.S. territory — including over military sites — without bothering to shoot it down until it had crossed the whole length of the country and floated out over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina.
The Pentagon finally shot it down on Feb. 4.
Chinese spy balloon shot down. #ChineseSpyBalloon pic.twitter.com/2LNUUf0Qpr
— Devon Pace (@elitedevon) February 4, 2023
NBC News reported in April that the Chinese spy balloon had gathered intelligence from U.S. military sites, and U.S. efforts to block it from doing so were not successful.
Three months later, however, the administration insisted that the balloon was not collecting information on the American targets over which it flew.
“In terms of … the balloon and … the capabilities that it has, as you heard at the time, we were aware that it had intelligence collection capabilities, but it … has been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or over-flying the United States,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a June 29 news conference.
The whole incident made Americans wonder just who President Joe Biden’s Pentagon is working for.
“Joe Biden has just given the ‘okay’ for Chinese spy balloons to fly all over our nation,” Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert said in a Feb. 4 social media post.
“Have we ever looked weaker?” she asked.
Joe Biden has just given the “okay” for Chinese spy balloons to fly all over our nation.
Now there’s one flying over Latin America, too.
Have we ever looked weaker?
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) February 4, 2023
This was not the only Chinese spy balloon spotted, either. That same week in February, the Pentagon said another balloon was seen floating over Latin America.
The world needs to step up and stop allowing the communist Chinese to disrupt, surveil and plan the destruction of every nation outside of their borders.
China is a rogue nation that will stop at nothing to get what it wants. Enough is enough.
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