Chinese balloon was part of military spy program

The Chinese balloon shot down by the United States was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals as part of a massive Beijing-led aerial espionage military program against more than 40 countries, the US government said Thursday.

According to the report, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has at its service a fleet of balloons specifically designed for espionage activities and is equipped with high-tech equipment to gather sensitive information on targets around the globe.

Similar balloons have taken to the skies on other continents, he added.

A senior State Department official issued a statement containing the most detailed details to date linking the Chinese military to the balloon, which was shot down last week over the Atlantic Ocean.

Making public the details revealing the scope and capabilities of the program is intended to refute China’s persistent denials that the balloon was used for espionage, including Beijing’s claim that the U.S. accusations about the balloon amounted to “war.” of information”.

President Joe Biden defended the American move.

When asked in an interview with the Spanish-language network Telemundo Noticias if the balloon episode was a serious security breach, Biden said no.

“Look, the total amount of intelligence gathering that is carried out by all the countries in the world is staggering,” he said. “In any case, it is not a great violation (…), it is a violation of international law. This is our airspace. And once it’s in our airspace, we can do whatever we want about it.”

On Capitol Hill, the House of Representatives voted unanimously to condemn the “blatant violation” of US sovereignty and Beijing’s attempts to “mislead the international community with false claims about its intelligence-gathering campaign.”

Republicans have criticized Biden for not moving quickly to bring down the balloon.

In Beijing, before the United States offered its new information, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning reiterated that the huge unmanned balloon was a civilian aerial vehicle used in meteorology that was blown off course by wind. , and that shooting it down was an “overreaction” by the United States.

“It is irresponsible,” Mao said. The latest allegations “could be part of the US side’s information war against China,” he added.

In a situation highlighting the tensions, China’s defense minister on Saturday refused to take a phone call from his US counterpart to discuss the balloon issue, the Pentagon said. For his part, Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a visit to Beijing scheduled for last weekend.

Washington categorically contradicted the Chinese version, asserting that images of the balloon taken by US U-2 spy planes as it crossed the country showed that it was “capable of collecting intelligence signals” with multiple antennas and other equipment designed to collect sensitive information, and that It was equipped with solar panels to power said equipment.

Jedidiah Royal, US assistant secretary of defense for the Indo-Pacific region, told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that the military has “some very good assumptions” about the type of intelligence sought by China. It is foreseeable that they will receive more information in a secret environment.

Senior FBI officials, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said few parts of the globe had made it to their agency’s Quantico, Virginia, lab for analysis.

So far, investigators have fragments of the balloon’s canvas, electrical cables and what one official described as “a very small amount of electronic components.” The official said that “it was too early for us to assess what the intent was and how the device worked.”

According to two US officials, the recovery of the balloon wreckage was temporarily suspended on Thursday because the seas were rough. They said some of the wreckage was intact on the seabed and that divers had picked up possibly high-value equipment in the past day and a half.

Another official reported that some of the recovered components had legends or markings in English, but it is unknown if they were of US origin or another English-speaking country. The official added that other highly technical parts recovered had no visible markings.

Much of the remains are concentrated in two sectors of an area that has a radius of 1,500 meters, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the operation to recover them.

The State Department official who provided details to reporters via email, also on condition of anonymity, said the analysis of the balloon debris “does not match” China’s explanation that it was a weather balloon that had collapsed. went off course.

The United States has communicated with countries that have also been targeted, the official added.

Washington is convinced that the manufacturer of the balloon shot down on Saturday has “a direct relationship with the Chinese military and is an authorized supplier” to the military, the official said, citing information from an official Chinese military purchasing website as evidence. .

State Department spokesman Ned Price declined to identify the other countries the United States says were also spied on.

It also did not reveal how the United States knows about Chinese incursions into those countries’ territories, claiming that doing so could compromise intelligence sources and methods.

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