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Former US president Donald Trump has said that China wouldn't have flown a spy balloon over the US while because the country has too much respect for him.
'Too much respect' for Trump
Posting on his social media site, Truth Social, the former president wrote: "China had too much respect for 'TRUMP' for this to have happened and it NEVER did".
His post was in response to the current US defence secretary, Llyod Austin saying that similar balloons had moved over the United States during Trump's presidency.
Trump denies this.
Republican representative Michael Waltz, told The Washington Post, that the Pentagon had notified Congress that Chinese balloons were spotter near the US several times when Trump was in the White House.
He said that balloons were spotted near Texas, twice near Florida and other previously-known sightings near Hawaii and Guam.
Republican politicians criticised US president Joe Biden for waiting days before shooting down the balloon as it floated over the US.
Biden made the decision to hold off on shooting down the balloon until its debris couldn't harm civilians.
The unmanned balloon could be spotted with the naked eye as it meandered across the country.
According to the Pentagon at least three balloons had "briefly transited the continental United States" during Trump's term in office and none of them were shot down.
(Image: Joe Granita/ZUMA Press Wire)
Searching for the debris
The US military has said it is searching for the remnant of the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that it shot down.
In an incident that has put further strain on US-China relations what appeared to be a spy-balloon was sited over US land.
US officials have downplayed the balloon's impact on national security.
On Saturday, a US air force fighter jet shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina in US territorial waters.
It first entered US airspace near Alaska one week earlier.
The US Navy is now working to recover the balloon and its payload.
Successfully recovering the balloon could give the US new insight into the spying capabilities of China.
A senior defence official told reporters that the nature of the debris was still being assessed but that the US would seek to "recover all debris and any material of intelligence value”, according to the US department of defence website.
The department expects the recovery to be "fairly easy" having planned for much deeper water.
China-US relations
Chinese officials have said the balloon is a 'civilian airship' and denounced the US decision to shoot it down.
China has urged the US not to escalate tensions or harm Chinese interests as a result of the incident.
Technological competition between the US and China is accelerating, according to The Washington Post.
The US has military bases, aircraft carriers and frequently carries out maritime exercises in areas that China believes to be its exclusive territorial waters.
It is not clear what information the balloon could have gleaned about the US that Chinese low orbital satellites could not.
Especially as balloon are subject to changes in the wind.
It is believed that China has dispatched between 20 and 30 balloons on missions in the past ten years.
There are two other balloons apparently in motion, including one over part of Latin America.
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This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform.