The Japanese government suspects that the three unidentified flying objects spotted in the Japanese airspace from 2019-2021 were Chinese "spy balloons," the Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday, citing the Japanese Defense Ministry
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th February, 2023) The Japanese government suspects that the three unidentified flying objects spotted in the Japanese airspace from 2019-2021 were Chinese "spy balloons," the Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday, citing the Japanese Defense Ministry.
One object allegedly belonging to China was detected in the southwestern Japanese prefecture of Kagoshima in November 2019, with the other two detected in the northeastern prefectures of Miyagi and Aomori in June 2020 and September 2021, the news agency said, citing the ministry.
The Japanese authorities said they had demanded that China confirm these facts, while also telling Beijing that Tokyo would never tolerate any violations of its airspace.
Later in the day, the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to media reports of alleged Chinese surveillance balloons flying over Japanese territory by urging Tokyo to be objective and impartial.
"We noted the reports. We would like to stress that Japan needs to be objective and impartial on this instead of following the US's suit in dramatizing it," spokesman Wang Wenbin told a briefing.
In early February, the United States detected an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon over the state of Montana. Beijing said that the balloon was a civilian airship engaged in scientific research and expressed regret over its unintended entry into US airspace, saying that the reason for this were force majeure circumstances.
Later in the month, the Pentagon confirmed the downing of three other unidentified airborne objects over Canada and the US states of Alaska and Michigan. The US Department of Defense said that the nature of the airborne objects was yet to be determined.
