(Washington) The Chinese spy balloon shot down by the US military over the Atlantic Ocean was capable of gathering some forms of electronic communications and was part of a Chinese military-led surveillance balloon fleet that has flown over more than 40 countries on five continents, the State Department said Thursday.
While the balloon was still in the air, U.S. U-2 surveillance planes took images of it to determine its capabilities, the department said in a statement, adding that the balloon’s equipment “was obviously intended for the intelligence service surveillance and did not correspond to the on-board equipment of weather balloons”.
The agency said the balloon had multiple antennae in an array that was “likely capable of picking up and geolocating communications.” The device’s solar panels were large enough to generate the power needed to operate “several active intelligence-gathering sensors,” the department said.
The agency also said the US government was “convinced” that the company that made the balloon had direct business ties with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China’s military, citing an official news portal. army supply. The Department did not name the company.
“The United States will also consider taking action against PRC entities linked to the PLA that supported the balloon’s incursion into U.S. airspace,” the State Department said, in reference to the People’s Republic of China.
We will also consider broader efforts to expose and address broader PRC surveillance activities that pose a threat to our national security, as well as our allies and partners.
Excerpt from US State Department press release
The Department said the company advertises balloons on its website and has posted videos of past flights that have apparently flown over the airspace of the United States and other nations. The videos show balloons with flight paths similar to those of the surveillance balloons the United States discussed this week, the agency said.
Signal collection
US officials do not know exactly what types of communications the satellite was trying to collect and have not determined which sites the balloon was targeting, US officials say.
Officials say they took measurements at nuclear launch sites and other military bases to try to ensure there was no useful information the balloon could gather. The US government has also taken steps to protect official communications in the path of the ball. While officials say they’re confident the balloon didn’t pick up sensitive data from US nuclear sites, they aren’t sure what it may have gathered.
It would be relatively easy for signal-gathering devices to obtain data about mobile phones in use around a military base, current and former officials say.
US Navy divers removed debris from the downed balloon from the shallow waters off the South Carolina coast. Investigators from the Pentagon, FBI and other intelligence agencies are reviewing the exhibits to see if the Chinese military or companies with ties to it are using technology from US or Western companies, US officials said.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY US NAVY, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Investigators from the Pentagon, FBI and other intelligence agencies examine parts recovered last Sunday, some by US Navy divers in shallow waters off the East Coast.
The discovery of such technology could prompt the Biden administration to take tougher measures to ensure that companies do not export technologies to China that could be used by the country’s military and security agencies. .
Analyzes and reverse engineering
US officials said they expected the recovered balloon parts to give them insight into how Chinese engineers put together surveillance technology.
“We are analyzing them to learn more about the monitoring program,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. “We are going to couple that with what we learn from the balloon – what we learn from the balloon itself – with what we have gleaned based on our careful observation of the system when it was in our airspace, as the president asked his team to do so. »
FBI officials said Thursday they are currently examining the balloon itself, wiring and small amounts of electronic equipment found floating in the water, all from debris that was turned over to the FBI on Monday.
Investigators believe most of the electronics are scattered on the ocean floor, FBI officials said. The balloon was 200 feet tall and had a payload the size of a commuter jet, US authorities had previously said.
Some officials said it was a priority to know exactly what kinds of communications intelligence the balloon could gather. They said they found no evidence to suggest the balloon could carry weapons or what one official called “energetic or offensive material.”
Wendy Sherman, Deputy Secretary of State, told a Senate committee on Thursday that the spy balloon episode “highlighted what we’ve known for a long time: the PRC has become more repressive at home and more aggressive outside “.
According to US officials, the Biden administration has declassified information it gathered about the balloon that crossed the United States last week and the Chinese military’s broader surveillance balloon operations to inform the American public and allies and partners of China’s espionage activities. The US administration hopes the intelligence will counter China’s narrative about the balloon and pressure its government to scale back some of its aerial surveillance activities, US officials say.
Chinese denial amid diplomatic crisis
China’s Foreign Ministry said on February 3, after the Pentagon announced the discovery of the spy balloon over Montana, that it was a Chinese civilian device used primarily for meteorological research. and that he had unfortunately deviated from his trajectory. He also said a second balloon, which the Pentagon claimed was a surveillance machine at the time drifting over Latin America, was used primarily for weather research.
The presence of the balloon in the United States last week sparked a diplomatic crisis and prompted Mr Blinken to cancel his weekend trip to Beijing, where he was due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. Mr Blinken said the balloon violated US sovereignty and was “an irresponsible act” by China.
PHOTO CHAD FISH, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
The suspect balloon was shot down on Saturday February 4 by the US military.
After a US fighter jet shot down the balloon on Saturday, the Chinese government said the US had overreacted and violated international convention, and China had “the right to respond”.
The Chinese government also said the ball belonged to China and should not be retained by the United States.
The US government says it has uncovered at least five cases of Chinese spy balloons on US soil – three during the Trump administration and two during the Biden administration. Spy balloons detected during the Trump administration were initially classified as unidentified aerial phenomena, US officials said. It was not until after 2020 that scholars carefully scrutinized the balloon episodes as part of a broader examination of aerial phenomena and determined that they were part of Chinese balloon surveillance initiatives around the world.