A Chinese spy “balloon” and three other unidentified flying objects were shot down in two weeks in Canada and the United States. The main suspect, China, is accused of violating North American airspace. The mystery hovers. Decryption.
What did these floating craft look like?
A first balloon 60 meters in diameter was spotted at the beginning of February above American nuclear silos. Solar panels and cameras appeared to be attached to it. The whole thing weighed almost a ton. This craft was shot down nearly 60,000 feet above the Atlantic after crossing the entire continent.
Three other smaller craft were later observed and shot down this weekend over Alaska, Yukon and Michigan. The one over the Yukon was “cylindrical” in shape, while the one over Michigan was “octagonal” in shape, according to authorities. Research is underway to recover the debris and elucidate the nature of these flying objects. The three devices were “clearly lighter than air” and “appeared” to be balloons, RCMP Major-General Paul Prévost said in a press briefing on Monday. “It looks like balloons, but we have to find them to find out what exactly it was. They floated at altitudes between 20,000 and 40,000 feet.
Is it frequent, drifting balloons?
No. “It’s very rare,” said Alana Dachtler of InterMet, one of the few US companies to sell weather balloons. “Balloons gain altitude at a rate of 300 meters per minute. It’s very fast. And they are designed to burst between 20 kilometers and 40 kilometers in altitude. […] There are 900 points in the world that launch at least one balloon into the sky every day and it usually doesn’t cause a problem. »
Who threw those balloons?
The Chinese recognized that the first balloon was theirs. They claim it’s just a weather balloon that veered off course. All Western sources reject this excuse. “We know which factory produced this ball,” says Alex Payette, co-founder of the Cercius Group, a strategic intelligence and geopolitical consulting firm. “In China, many companies manufacture meteorological balloons, but there are very few companies that manufacture this kind of balloon capable of carrying observation equipment. We know that he is a subcontractor for a state company directly linked to the People’s Army. »
The provenance of the other objects remains a mystery, but China remains the main suspect.
What are the Chinese intentions?
Alex Payette sets out four hypotheses to explain why China launched this operation.
The “very simple” answer is to want to provoke the United States “to test the reaction”. The advantage of balloon technology is its very low cost: between 20 and 500 US dollars for a normal weather balloon.
“Human error” may then be an option. “A bad calculation or a material problem” is not an avenue to dismiss, because China can appear as a giant with feet of clay. “It is not because there is a modernization of the army that people know how to use the equipment. […] The last Chinese veterans are those who touched in Vietnam. […] Their capacity should not be overestimated. »
Then come two hypotheses of “internal struggles” within the Chinese apparatus. The People’s Army of China may have decided on its own to launch a surveillance operation. “It must be understood that the party [communiste chinois] works in a very fragmented way. It is possible that in response to the centralization [récente], there are bodies within the army that are trying to gain independence. They may have launched an operation without the knowledge [du président] Xi Jinping in order to identify things on the ground. »
Finally, the political calendar can shed light on this mystery. The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken was to visit China on February 5 and 6 to ease tensions between the two superpowers. This Chinese balloon saga sparked this reconciliation effort. Chinese partisans of the “hard line”, opposed to any rapprochement with the West, could be at the origin of this “sabotage”, affirms Alex Payette. “To make Xi Jinping look bad as much as possible […] we send lots of balloons to be seen at the extremely inopportune moment. […] The people who are in [les branches militaires du gouvernement chinois] are not necessarily darlings of Xi Jinping’s policies. It is very possible that they wanted to place him in a position of continuous isolation in order to prevent him from being able to reconnect with the United States and come out of this state of isolation in which they have been immersed since 2019.
Should we be afraid?
Not really. Americans used these balloons to monitor their enemies in the last century. Admittedly, such a balloon can intercept radio signals, but satellites and cyberspace have largely taken over in espionage activities.
“If we wanted to carry out a spy operation, why use something that we detect with the human eye? asks Stephanie Carvin, a political scientist specializing in international security at Carleton University. “The North American Aerospace Defense Command has increased the range of objects they now monitor and that is why the three objects were discovered more recently. But, that raises the other question: how many other balloons are there that we haven’t detected? »
The biggest fear of experts interviewed by The duty lies in the mystery of Chinese intentions. “What worries me the most is not the balloons, but our inability to communicate with the Chinese,” says Mme Carvin. “In the case of balloons, we will pass through. But if it was a more serious crisis, would we be able to talk to the Chinese about this subject? Right now the answer is no. »