Washington: The Pentagon announced on Thursday that the Chinese spy balloon that a US fighter jet shot down over the Atlantic in February did not gather intelligence while it was flying across the US.

Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder stated, "It's been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or overflying the United States."

According to Ryder, the US "took steps to mitigate" the balloon's ability to gather intelligence. Ryder said, without elaborating, "Certainly the efforts we made contributed" to that.

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In late January and early February of this year, a huge balloon carrying a substantial payload of electronics crossed over the United States from Alaska in the northwest to South Carolina in the east, passing over sensitive military installations and raising fears that Beijing was gathering crucial intelligence.

The US military recovered it from the Atlantic Ocean after it was shot down on February 4 just off the coast of South Carolina. Since then, they have been examining its contents.

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As a result of the incident, ties between Beijing and Washington have become more strained. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a long-planned trip to China in February that was intended to strengthen the two countries' ties.
China claimed the balloon had strayed off course and entered US airspace, and denied using it to gather intelligence.

A US official at the time claimed that the balloon had several antennas, including an array that was probably capable of gathering and geolocating communications.

The official stated that the vehicle had solar panels that were "large enough to produce the necessary power to operate multiple active intelligence collection sensors."

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The White House downplayed the entire balloon incident earlier this month, just before Blinken's rescheduled trip to Beijing, where he met Chinese President Xi Jinping.

President Joe Biden said, "I don't think the (Chinese) leadership knew where it was, knew what was in it, and knew what was going on."
Biden said, "I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional