US intelligence agencies have concluded that China regularly uses balloons for intelligence purposes in various parts of the world, a Pentagon official said on Wednesday.

 Chinese balloons have been spotted over Central and Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, Europe, which, according to Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder, leads to the disappointing conclusion of the existence of a large-scale program of using balloons to conduct intelligence.

 As the interlocutors of the New York Times newspaper explain, balloons have some advantages compared to reconnaissance satellites. They are closer to the surface of the Earth, they are more difficult to detect with the help of radars, they can hover over the territory of interest to intelligence, they use simple cameras to shoot, providing high quality images, with the help of equipment on balloons you can listen to communication channels that are not available to listening from satellites due to their distance from the Earth.

 According to American data, research related to the use of balloons for reconnaissance and other purposes is being conducted at China's National University of Defense Technology. Among the objects of China's increased attention are India, the Philippines, Japan and Taiwan. American diplomats insist that such flights of balloons are a violation of the airspace of states.

 Increased attention to China's spy balloon program was sparked by the appearance of a Chinese balloon over the United States last week. During the week, the balloon passed from the Aleutian Islands in the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic coast of the United States. It was shot down last Saturday over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina. China said that the US destroyed the weather probe. The Pentagon later said it was the fifth Chinese balloon spotted over the United States in recent years.