The Department of Defense assessed that the Chinese surveillance balloon that traversed the continental United States earlier this year did not "collect" intelligence during its flight.
China's spy balloon, which Beijing insisted at the time was a weather balloon blown off course, was composed of American technology that helped it collect audio-visual information, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
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"The balloon and the capabilities that it has, as you heard at the time, we were aware that it had intelligence-collection capabilities, but it has been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or overflying the United States," Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Thursday.
Ryder declined to comment on the possibility that U.S. parts were used in the spy balloon.
DOD officials said at the time, in early February, that they had taken precautionary measures to ensure the balloon could not gather sensitive intelligence as it flew over military bases. It also delayed Secretary of State Antony Blinken's trip to Beijing, which he ultimately went on earlier this month.
The U.S. military shot the balloon down once it sailed off the coast of the Carolinas. The military worked to recover the debris of the balloon, while the FBI, which took control of the debris, has not publicly disclosed any conclusions from its investigation.
While China's military, the People's Liberation Army, had been engaging in risky and unsafe maneuvers toward U.S. aircraft and naval vessels in the Pacific region since before the spy balloon incident, it marked the beginning of Chinese military leaders' current silence toward their U.S. allies.
The U.S. has repeatedly warned that their silence would increase the likelihood of escalation or miscalculations between the two countries.
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Beijing refused to establish a crisis communications challenge with the U.S. military officials, Blinken said during his trip, despite U.S. warnings that their silence raises the possibility of “an unintentional conflict” between the powers.
Weeks earlier, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart, Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu, briefly spoke at the Shangri-La summit. Ryder said the two leaders "shook hands but did not have a substantive exchange" and that the Chinese declined a U.S. request for a more formal meeting between Li and Austin.