US says Chinese balloon could collect intel signals
Craft was piece in a plan that monitored countries worldwide
WASHINGTON — The balloon from China that was shot down last weekend by the U.S. over the Atlantic Ocean was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals as part of a huge, military-linked aerial surveillance program that targeted more than 40 countries, the Biden administration declared Thursday, citing imagery from American U-2 spy planes.
A fleet of balloons operates under the direction of the People’s Liberation Army and is used specifically for spying, outfitted with high-tech equipment designed to gather sensitive information from targets across the globe, the U.S. said.
A statement from a senior State Department official offered the most detail to date linking China’s military to the balloon. The public details outlining the program’s scope and capabilities were meant to refute
China’s persistent denials that the balloon was used for spying, including a claim Thursday that U.S. accusations about the balloon amount to “information warfare.”
On Capitol Hill, the House voted unanimously to condemn China for a “brazen violation” of U.S. sovereignty and efforts to “deceive the international community through false claims about its intelligence collection campaigns.” Republicans have criticized President Joe Biden for not acting sooner to down the balloon, but both parties’ lawmakers came together on the vote, 419-0.
In Beijing, before the U.S. offered its new information, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning repeated her nation’s insistence that the large unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course and that the U.S. had “overreacted.”
“It is irresponsible,” Mao said. The latest accusations, she said, “may be part of the U.S. side’s information warfare against China.”
Underscoring the tensions, China’s defense minister refused to take a phone call from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss the balloon issue Saturday, the Pentagon said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a planned weekend trip to Beijing.
The U.S. contradicted China’s version of events, saying that imagery of the balloon collected by American spy planes as it crossed the country showed that it was “capable of conducting signals intelligence collection” with multiple antennas and other equipment designed to upload sensitive information and solar panels to power them.
Jedidiah Royal, the U.S. assistant defense secretary for the Indo-pacific, told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that the military has “some very good guesses” about what intelligence China was seeking.
Senior FBI officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the bureau said a few pieces of the balloon had arrived at the FBI’S Quantico, Virginia, lab for investigation. So far, investigators have parts of the balloon canopy, wiring, and what one official called “a very small amount of electronics.” The official said it
was “very early for us to assess what the intent was.”
According to two U.S. officials, the balloon recovery efforts were temporarily suspended Thursday due to high seas. They said some balloon debris was intact on the ocean floor and divers had recovered potentially high-value equipment over the past day and a half.
The release of new information appeared part of a coordinated administration response, with multiple officials appearing before congressional panels to face questions about the balloon.
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Deputy Secretary
of State Wendy Sherman said officials had taken “all necessary steps to protect sensitive information” and had been able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment.
At a separate Senate subcommittee hearing, lawmakers pressed administration officials, including Pentagon military leaders, about why the balloon was not shot down over sparsely populated areas of Alaska. And they questioned whether allowing the balloon to transit such a large area set a precedent for future spying efforts by China and others.
“It defies belief that there
was not a single opportunity to safely shoot this spy balloon prior to the coast of South Carolina,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-maine.
Melissa Dalton, assistant defense secretary of Homeland Defense, and Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. wanted to avoid any injuries or deaths from the debris field if the balloon was downed over Alaska. They added that shooting it down over the frigid waters in that region would have made it more difficult and dangerous to recover the pieces.
“We thought before we shot,” Sims said.