The Balloon Crisis: Why Would China Use This To Spy on America?

On Friday morning, China’s Foreign Ministry announced that the large balloon that was reported to be slowly floating over Montana on Thursday was actually a civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research and that it had simply deviated from its planned course.
“The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of Chinese said via a statement. “The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure.”
The ministry also said that Chinese officials will continue communicating with the United States and properly address the issue.
Is China lying? Is this some spy balloon? 
China and a Case of Spy Craft Gone Wrong? 
On Thursday, it had been widely speculated that the slow-moving bal …