Newsman: The Biden administration said Thursday The Chinese government has flown its fleet of spy balloons “over more than 40 countries across five continents,” The official said U.S. agencies have determined the balloons are “clearly for intelligence surveillance.”
State Department held briefing after details revealed on China’s aerial spying.A statement from a senior State Department official offered the most detail to date linking China’s military to the balloon that was shot down by the U.S. last weekend over the Atlantic Ocean. Citing imagery from American U-2 spy planes the state department official said the Balloon was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals as part of a huge, military-linked aerial surveillance program. The U.S. accusations about the balloon amount to “information warfare.”
The Biden administration, likely the State Department, is expected to share some of the declassified information as early as Wednesday, but the process for doing so is still ongoing, the officials said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning in Beijing repeated her nation’s insistence before the U.S. offered its new information that the large unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course and that the U.S. had “overreacted” by shooting it down, “It is irresponsible,” Mao said. The latest accusations, she said, “may be part of the U.S. side’s information warfare against China.”
The U.S. straight contradicted China’s version of events, saying that imagery of the balloon collected by American U-2 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.
State Department spokesman Ned Price would not identify the other countries the U.S. says have also been targeted. Nor would he reveal how the U.S. knows there have been Chinese incursions over those countries’ territory, saying to do so could compromise intelligence sources and methods.
The State Department official, providing details to reporters by email, also on condition of anonymity, said an analysis of the balloon debris was “inconsistent” with China’s explanation that it was a weather balloon that went off course. The U.S. is reaching out to countries that have also been targeted, the official said, to discuss the scope of the Chinese surveillance program, and is looking into potential action that “supported the balloon’s incursion into U.S. airspace.”
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 state department official said. Similar balloons have sailed over five continents.
The official said the U.S. has confidence that the manufacturer of the balloon shot down on Saturday has “a direct relationship with China’s military and is an approved vendor of the” army. The official cited information from an official PLA procurement portal as evidence for the connection between the company and the military.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a planned weekend trip to Beijing. Underscoring the tensions, China’s defense minister refused to take a phone call from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss the balloon issue on Saturday, the Pentagon said.
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.
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. More information was expected to be provided in a classified setting.
Senior FBI officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the bureau said just 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 and how the device was operating.”
According to two U.S. officials, the balloon recovery efforts were temporarily suspended on 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 committees 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.
“We will continue to answer the dangers posed by the PRC with determination and resolve,” Sherman said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “We will make clear to the PRC that violations of our sovereignty and the sovereignty of other countries are unacceptable.”
The Chinese balloon first flew over Montana, which is home to Malmstrom Air Force Base, where one of the military’s three nuclear missile silo fields is located before it was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet last week.
