This picture provided by the U.S. Navy shows sailors recovering a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina.Credit...Petty Officer 1st Class Tyler Thompson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Edward Wong
WASHINGTON — The Chinese spy balloon shot down by the U.S. military over the Atlantic Ocean was capable of collecting communications signals and was part of a fleet of surveillance balloons directed by the Chinese military that had flown over more than 40 countries across five continents, the State Department said Thursday.
The United States used high resolution imagery from U-2 flybys to determine the balloon’s capabilities, the department said in a written announcement, adding that the balloon’s equipment “was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard weather balloons.”
The agency said the balloon had multiple antennas in an array that was “likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications.” Solar panels on the machine were large enough to produce power to operate “multiple active intelligence collection sensors,” the department said.
The agency also said the U.S. government was “confident” that the company that made the balloon had direct commercial ties with the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese military, citing an official procurement portal for the army. The department did not name the company.
“The United States will also explore taking action against P.R.C. entities linked to the P.L.A. that supported the balloon’s incursion into U.S. airspace,” the State Department said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “We will also look at broader efforts to expose and address the P.R.C.’s larger surveillance activities that pose a threat to our national security, and to our allies and partners.”
The department said the company advertises balloon products on its website and has posted videos from past flights that apparently flew over U.S. airspace and the airspace of other nations. The videos show balloons that have similar flight patterns as the surveillance balloons that the United States has been discussing this week, the agency said.
The Chinese Spy Balloon Showdown
The discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon floating over the United States has added to the rising tensions between the two superpowers.
- A Diplomatic Crisis: How did a Chinese balloon end up triggering a high-stakes dispute between Washington and Beijing? “The Daily” takes a look at the tense saga.
- China Plays Down Dispute: Beijing is deploying its propaganda apparatus to ensure that the balloon avoids becoming not only an international headache but a domestic one, too.
- Investment Restrictions: Amid growing concerns about Beijing’s military and economic ambitions, the Biden administration is preparing new rules that would restrict U.S. dollars from flowing to China.
- Previous Incursions: This was not the first spy balloon from China to be detected passing over the United States. A top military commander said that, during the Trump administration, some balloons were initially classified as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or U.F.O.s.
American officials do not know exactly what kinds of communications the satellite was trying to collect and have not determined what sites the balloon was targeting, U.S. officials say.
U.S. officials say the Biden administration has declassified information it has gathered on the balloon that traversed the United States last week and the Chinese military’s broader balloon surveillance operations in order to inform the American public and allied and partner nations of China’s espionage activities. The administration is hopeful the intelligence will counter China’s narrative of the balloon and put pressure on its government to curb some of its aerial surveillance, the U.S. officials say.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said last Friday, after the Pentagon announced it had discovered the spy balloon hovering over Montana, that the balloon was a civilian machine from China mainly used for weather research, and that it had regrettably drifted off course. It also said a second balloon, which the Pentagon asserted was a surveillance machine drifting at the time over Latin America, was mainly used for weather research.
The presence of the balloon in the United States last week ignited a diplomatic crisis and prompted Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to cancel a weekend trip to Beijing, where he had been expected to meet President Xi Jinping of China. Mr. Blinken said the balloon had violated U.S. sovereignty and was “an irresponsible act” by China.
