Taiwan officials say Chinese balloon found on northern island

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Officials in Taiwan on Thursday said a Chinese weather balloon landed on one of its outlying northern islands.

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According to The Associated Press, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said the balloon carried equipment registered to a state-owned electronics company in the northern city of Taiyuan.

The ministry said that late Thursday morning its forces on Dongyin island, which is part of the Matsu archipelago off the coast of China controlled by Taiwan, observed an unknown object falling from the sky, CNBC reported. Soldiers then discovered the remnants of a balloon on a shooting range, according to the news organization.

The balloon’s discovery comes two weeks after a Chinese balloon was detected drifting across the U.S. The surveillance balloon crossed several states before it was shot down off the South Carolina coast on Feb. 4. Three more objects have been shot down over North American airspace, including near northeastern Alaska, the Yukon Territory in Canada and above Lake Huron in the U.S.

It is unclear whether those three objects were related to the balloon that was shot down off the South Carolina coast.

Calls and messages sent to the company identified in the Taiwan ministry’s report, Taiyuan Wireless (Radio) First Factory Ltd., were not returned, according to the AP.

On Friday, Chiu Kuo-cheng, Taiwan’s defense minister, said that officials would further investigate the crashed balloon but would not “jump to conclusions,” the BBC reported.

The object was about 1 meter in diameter with an instrument box marked with simplified Chinese characters, CNBC reported. Simplified Chinese is used on the mainland and not in Taiwan, according to the news outlet.

President Joe Biden on Thursday said the U.S. is developing “sharper rules” to track, monitor and potentially shoot down unknown aerial objects, the AP reported.