China has long used spy balloons, Pentagon says
WASHINGTON — The Chinese balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast was part of a large surveillance program that China has been conducting for “several years,” the Pentagon said Wednesday.
When similar balloons passed over U.S. territory on four occasions during the Trump and Biden administrations, the U.S. did not immediately identify them as Chinese surveillance balloons, said Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary. But he said “subsequent intelligence analysis” allowed the U.S. to confirm they were part of a Chinese spying effort and learn “a lot more” about the program.
He refused to provide any new details about those previous balloons. When pressed, Ryder would say only that the balloons flew over “sites that would be of interest to the Chinese.”
One of the possible incidents was last February.
Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, the adjutant general in Hawaii, tweeted about a balloon over Kauai a year ago. He said U.S. Indo-Pacific Command “detected a highaltitude object floating in air in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands” and sent up aircraft to intercept it. He said they visually confirmed it was an unmanned balloon with no identification markings.
Ryder declined to say whether this was one of the four previous incidents that he had mentioned. Pacific Air Forces, the Air Force command in the Indo-Pacific, said that balloon was not shot down.
The recent balloon was shot down by a U.S. military fighter jet Saturday. The Navy and Coast Guard are working to recover pieces of the balloon so they can be analyzed.
China says it was a civilian balloon used for meteorological research and sharply criticized the U.S. for shooting it down.
In response to questions about China’s explanation, Ryder said Wednesday: “I can assure you this was not for civilian purposes . ... We are 100% clear about that.”
Ryder said North American Aerospace Defense Command began tracking the balloon as it approached U.S. airspace. It passed north of the Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28 and moved across Alaska and then into Canadian airspace before crossing back into the U.S. over northern Idaho on Jan. 31, U.S. officials have said.
Top administration officials were briefing members of Congress on the Chinese balloon surveillance program in classified sessions Wednesday and Thursday. Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, and Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of U.S. Northern Command, were among those expected to brief lawmakers.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the U.S. has briefed dozens of countries on the program, which officials said has been active over five continents.
“The United States was not the only target,” he said at a news conference with visiting NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. Blinken said he and Stoltenberg had spoken about the “systemic and tactical challenges” that China poses to the alliance and the importance of combating them.
Stoltenberg agreed on the nature of the Chinese threat, saying that the balloon incident “confirms a pattern of Chinese behavior” and that Beijing had “invested heavily in new military capabilities, including different types of surveillance and intelligence platforms.”