UFOs invade US air space
America has shot down four mysterious flying objects. What are they? Emily Hohler reports
Four mysterious objects have been shot down over North America in the course of a week, starting with a “suspected Chinese spy balloon”, says Matthew Sparkes in the New Scientist. Many other sightings have since been reported, with China claiming that the US has flown spy balloons over its territory as well. The first object was a 60m craft with a payload equivalent to three buses, which spent a week over North America before being struck down on 4 February; the last three were each around the size of a small car, says Demetri Sevastopulo in the Financial Times.
So far, Washington has said there is “no indication” that the last three relate to Chinese spying, but they have also said that the debris needs to be analysed before their “purpose or origin” can be ascertained, says George Grylls in The Times.
However, the US has accused China of using spy balloons to “conduct a mass surveillance programme in 40 countries” and blacklisted a Chinese research institute and five aviation and defence companies, the implication being that those firms were involved in building the balloon. Beijing, meanwhile, insists the balloon was simply a weather-monitoring airship that had blown off-course and says it will take “countermeasures” against the US for using unnecessary force.
China’s spy balloon programme “appears purposeful, well-planned, wellfunded and ongoing”, says Peter Layton in The Conversation. It is likely to continue, with its focus being “electronic surveillance, in particular mapping the civil and military communication networks of other countries, presumably to aid monitoring and possible later intrusions”. The Pentagon says its balloons have been spotted over South America, South-East Asia, East Asia and Europe in recent years. Britain will now undertake a security review, say Daniel Martin and David Gutteridge in The Daily Telegraph. Rishi Sunak is under increasing pressure to take a harder line with China. Two years ago, 5G mobile networks were ordered to remove Huawei technology over security concerns and there are fears that China’s Confucius Institutes are being used to “spread Communist Party propaganda and spy on students in British universities”.
What China is up to
“Media sensationalism and political opportunism” are driving the hysteria, says Kenneth Osgood in The Washington Post. It’s reminiscent of the “1957 freakout after Sputnik made history as the first satellite to orbit the Earth”, only this balloon doesn’t represent a “major technological breakthrough”. History suggests China is “probably trying to compensate for a disadvantage in an asymmetrical climate”, not launching a new and dangerous weapon to exploit an American vulnerability.
From a military perspective, China’s spy balloons certainly “don’t make a lot of sense”, says David Axe in The New York Times. “A high-altitude balloon doesn’t do much that a small satellite in low-Earth orbit can’t do – and the satellite has the benefit of being practically invisible to the naked eye.” They might even be cheaper. With its 500 satellites, China is the world’s “second largest space power” and the Pentagon has long known it is being watched, which is why the military “urged calm” when the balloon was first sighted.
So what is China up to? Authoritarian regimes need to do two things to stay in power: “project strength abroad while projecting that strength at home”. External enemies allow them to “cast themselves as their country’s protector”. The “same military provocations that describe the foreign threat are also a subtle reminder to the people back home: stay in line, lest we aim this weaponry at you.”