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China Sends Spy Balloons Over Military Sites Worldwide, U.S. Officials Say [1]
['Julian E. Barnes', 'Edward Wong', 'Helene Cooper', 'Chris Buckley']
Date: 2023-02-08
“This last week provided the United States with a unique opportunity to learn a lot more about the Chinese surveillance balloon program, all information that will help us to continue to strengthen our ability to track these kinds of objects,” General Ryder said.
Before last week, the United States had tracked Chinese surveillance balloons collecting information from more than a dozen countries around the world, officials said. Some of the Chinese efforts appeared to be focused on the Pacific region, and a number of the balloons and other Chinese surveillance efforts have been detected over U.S. allies and partners in that region.
The New York Times reported Saturday that a classified intelligence report given to Congress last month highlighted at least two instances of a foreign power using advanced technology for aerial surveillance over American military bases, one inside the continental United States and the other overseas. The research suggested China was the foreign power, U.S. officials said. The report also discussed surveillance balloons.
In the United States, at least five spy balloons have been observed — three during the Trump administration and two during the Biden administration. The spy balloons observed during the Trump administration were initially classified as unidentified aerial phenomena, U.S. officials said. It was not until after 2020 that officials closely examined the balloon incidents under a broader review of aerial phenomena and determined that the incidents were part of the Chinese global balloon surveillance effort.
While assessments differ on what the Chinese surveillance balloons can collect, many officials believe Chinese satellites are generally as capable of image collection as a balloon. But the balloons can linger longer over a site, and potentially collect multiple forms of intelligence, although officials have not described what they know about the balloons’ collection ability.
The Chinese government has claimed the balloon was meant to collect weather information. General Ryder said that if the balloon that traveled across the United States were really for civilian purposes, Beijing would have given Washington advance warning.
“The P.R.C. did not do that,” General Ryder said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “They didn’t respond until after they were called out. We’ll just leave it at that.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/us/politics/china-spy-balloons.html
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