China made a “deep mistake” after it was found to be flying a spy balloon over the United States, a leading security expert has claimed.
A series of balloons from China – thought to be spy balloons – have plagued the US and Canada over the last week ro so.
And while it is now thought that the balloons have been spotted over five continents, the leaders in the UK are sufficiently worried enough that a review is being launched.
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But the former head of MI5, Sir Alex Younger, has said that China’s leadership made a “deep mistake” by not “properly thinking through” how the world would react to its spy balloon scheme – and he also said that the world needs to “wake up” to the dangers China poses.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “It’s a deep mistake by China to underestimate the effect that this was going to have.
(Image: Getty Images)
“I think it wasn’t properly thought through, and it’s really difficult for (President) Xi because he’s proposing a new security architecture for the world which is about the indivisible rights and interconnected security of developing countries and China’s role in safeguarding that in contrast to a sort of ‘US recklessness’.
“This just flies absolutely flies in the face of that.
“It’s a really gross and visible transgression of the sovereignty of many nations.
“We are in competition with China – we need to wake up to this.”
(Image: CHASE DOAK/AFP via Getty Images)
However, UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace commented over the weekend that a security review was taking place, and that the development of Chinese spy balloons is “another sign of how the global threat picture is changing for the worse”.
China originally confirmed that the balloons were of Chinese origin, but tried to claim that it was from a local whose weather balloon got lost – no further comments have been made since.
A NATO summit is current taking place, with China among the topics – as well as Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine.
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