What were the Chinese looking for?

Not an important breach? Mr. President, I beg to differ. Perhaps you do know how important these incursions from space are, but you cannot say because we do not want the Chinese to know that we know what they are up to. We must assume, however, that such clandestine eavesdropping can and will be used against us … militarily, economically, and culturally. It is not possible to dismiss this act of electronic warfare as unimportant even when we learn the surveillance capacity of the balloon.

Leaving the balloon’s possible imagery and photography capabilities aside, the Chinese are certainly interested in our military and industrial secrets or even certain economic matters or other privileged information. Information, clear or encrypted, could be intercepted, and re-sent to China where experts can de-crypt, and other experts could use this information to benefit China in any number of ways at our expense. Just learning our secrets of encryption could enable the Chinese to develop counter-measures to intercept, jam or destroy our most vital communications at a time of their choosing.

It would be helpful to know what the Chinese are interested in. Strategic nuclear capabilities for sure. Did we intercept communications from the balloon back to China? If so, were we able to read it? One could guess that the Chinese have also targeted businesses and people whose normal communications would be of great interest to further develop the Chinese economy and technical knowhow at our expense. It is precisely because we do not know what the Chinese are up to that the U.S. cannot dismiss these troubling events as “not important.”