US says China balloons not detected due to 'awareness gap'
The United States Department of Defense said the reason why three suspected Chinese surveillance balloons passed through the continental United States undetected under the previous administration was Pentagon's "domain awareness gap," CNN reported.
"I will tell you that we did not detect those threats ... And that's a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out, but I don't want to go into further detail," General Glen VanHerck, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, was quoted as saying.
The military on Saturday shot down a surveillance balloon after it sailed over the Atlantic Ocean. Beijing later protested against the move and denied accusations that the object was a spy device, arguing that it was a civilian weather research "airship" that was blown off course. According to several reports that followed the incident, it was not the first time such a balloon was spotted over the US.