Taiwan says it has found the remains of what appears to be a crashed Chinese weather balloon.
Taiwan’s military said it had spotted an unidentified object drifting over Dongying – a Taiwanese-controlled island off the coast of China – at 11:00 local time (03:00 GMT) on Thursday.
He later found the crash site at a shooting range.
The army added that initial investigations showed that the remains were part of a meteorological instrument.
On Friday, Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said authorities would conduct further investigations into the downed balloon but would “not jump to conclusions”.
According to local media, senior defense official Chen Yu-lin said it was the first time such balloon remains had been discovered in Taiwan’s coastal islands.
Recent weeks have seen a fresh rise in tensions between China and the United States, after the United States shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon in its airspace earlier this month. The US also shot down three other objects that it says are unlikely to be foreign spy crafts.
The sphere found on Dongyen was about one meter in diameter and was named after a China-based company that stocks meteorological and radio equipment, based on online searches.
Company Taiyuan Radio No. 1 Factory Co. Ltd is located in Taiyuan, one of China’s major industrial bases and the capital of Shaanxi Province.
The circle is also marked “GTS 13 Digital Atmospheric Sounding Instrument” and “Meteorological Instrument,” with simplified Chinese characters, the military said in a statement.
China has used simplified Chinese characters since the 1950s, but Taiwan continues to use traditional characters.
Officials have not released photos of the object.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Tuesday that it had not detected any Chinese surveillance balloons, but had seen weather balloons before. He also said that he would not hesitate to shoot down any balloon he deemed a threat.
The comments come after the Financial Times reported earlier this week – citing unnamed officials – that dozens of Chinese military balloons had been spotted in Taiwan’s airspace in recent years.
China views an independent Taiwan as a breakaway province that will ultimately come under Beijing’s control.
But Taiwan, with its own constitution and democratically elected leaders, sees itself as separate from mainland China.
