U.S. officials said Monday that improvements ordered by President Joe Biden to strengthen defences against Chinese espionage helped to identify last week's spy balloon -- and to determine that similar flights were conducted at multiple points during the Trump administration.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that after Biden took office, the U.S. "enhanced our surveillance of our territorial airspace, we enhanced our capacity to be able to detect things that the Trump administration was unable to detect."
Sullivan, speaking at an event hosted by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, said as part of the surveillance improvements since Biden took office, "we were able to go back and look at the historical patterns" and uncover "multiple instances" during the Trump administration in which Chinese surveillance balloons traversed American airspace and territory.
Sullivan did not explain what specifically allowed the U.S. to detect and track the latest balloon where the previous administration might not have. Officials have said, without elaborating, that China has flown similar balloons over parts of five continents in recent years. Sullivan said the U.S. was "still piecing through" which Chinese officials knew what about the balloon and would not speak publicly yet about U.S. assessments about China's intentions flying it over the U.S.
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