U.S. says China balloon could collect intelligence signals
WASHINGTON • The China balloon shot down by the U.S. was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals as part of a huge, military-linked aerial surveillance program that targeted more than 40 countries, the Biden administration declared Thursday, citing imagery from American U-2 spy planes. 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 U.S. said. Similar balloons have sailed over five continents, according to the administration.
A statement from a 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. The public details outlining the program’s scope and capabilities were meant to refute China’s persistent denials that the balloon was used for spying, including a claim Thursday that U.S. accusations about the balloon amount to “information warfare.”
President Joe Biden defended the U.S. action.
Asked in an interview with Spanish language Telemundo whether the balloon episode represented a major security breach, he said, “It’s not a major breach. Look, the total amount of intelligence gathering that’s going on by every country around the world is overwhelming. I mean, it’s a violation of international law. It’s our airspace. And once it comes into our space, we can do what we want with it.”
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 Biden for not acting sooner to down the balloon, but both parties’ lawmakers came together on the vote, 419-0.
In Beijing, before the U.S. offered its new info, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning repeated her nation’s insistence that the lnmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course and that the U.S. had “overreacted” by shooting it down.
FBI special agents Thursday assigned to the evidence response team process material recovered from the high altitude balloon recovered off the coast of South Carolina at the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va.
