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China’s military is likely behind a massive aerial spying program that has targeted more than 40 countries on five continents with high-altitude surveillance balloons similar to those shot down by the US over the Atlantic coast last weekend, the Biden administration said Thursday.
The balloon fleet is used exclusively for spying, equipped with high-tech equipment and able to collect communications signals and other sensitive information from targets around the globe, the US government said.
A statement from a senior State Department official offers the most detail yet linking the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to the balloon that flew over the United States. The public details are meant to contradict China’s persistent denials that the balloons were used for spying, including Thursday’s claim that US allegations about the balloons amounted to “information warfare” against Beijing.
In Beijing, before the US gave the new information, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning repeatedly insisted that the large unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had exploded and that the US had “overreacted” by shooting it down.
“It’s irresponsible,” Mao said. The latest allegations, he said, “may be part of the US information war against China.”
Not a weather balloon, says the US
China’s defense minister declined a call from US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss the balloon issue on Saturday, the Pentagon said. China has not responded to questions about which government department or company the balloon was, or how it plans to follow through on promises to take further action on the matter.
US officials said that imagery of the balloon collected by an American U-2 spy plane as it flew over the country showed it was “capable of conducting signals intelligence collection” with multiple antennas and other equipment designed to upload sensitive information and solar panels to power it. . .
The official said the analysis of the balloon’s debris was “inconsistent” with China’s explanation that the weather balloons were erratic. The US is reaching out to countries it has also targeted, the official said, to discuss the scope of China’s surveillance program.
The official briefed reporters by email on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter, which has forced the cancellation of a planned visit to China earlier this week by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The official said the U.S. has confidence that the manufacturer of the balloon shot down on Saturday has “direct ties to the Chinese military and is an approved vendor” of the army. The official cited information from the official procurement portal of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as proof of the company’s relationship with the military.
Another debate is about when to intervene
The balloon’s one-day trajectory sparked a debate in Congress about whether the US should take it down as soon as possible.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins, in the Senate appropriations subcommittee in defense, said she believed it could have been taken down in a remote area of Alaska before the public learned of its existence through Montana.
US President Joe Biden said he wants to fire on February 1, but the Pentagon suggested otherwise, wait until the water.
In the same hearing, US officials said it was found through Alaska on January 28, arriving in Montana on January 31. In between, it traveled through Canada, said Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary of defense to defend the homeland.
The North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) has custody of the tracks until they enter American airspace, Dalton said, and U.S. and Canadian officials are in regular contact.
Both Dalton and Lt.-Gen. Douglas Sims said that given the balloon is 60 meters high, with a payload the size of a jetliner and large metal components, it is safer to take it down through the water, which they believe is also the recovery of other debris.
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, testifying before the Senate foreign relations committee on Thursday, said the development reflected “increased coercion by Beijing,” while also citing recent allegations that China has set up illegal police stations in North America.
This is not the first time the US government has publicly mentioned the alleged activities of the People’s Liberation Army. In the first prosecution in 2014, the Obama administration’s Justice Department indicted five PLA hackers accused of breaking into the computer networks of major American companies to steal trade secrets.
Alleged hackers with the PLA were also indicted in 2020 for stealing the personal data of tens of millions of Americans in a breach of credit reporting agency Equifax.
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