There are no more doubts for Washington: the Chinese balloon was “clearly” equipped with spy tools. According to US officials, images captured by US military aircraft show that the aircraft that flew over the United States last week was well equipped with intelligence gathering tools, not intended for weather.
Photos taken by U2 spy planes indicate that the balloon material “was clearly made for observation for spy purposes, and does not fit with weather balloon equipment”, said Thursday, February 9 a senior US State Department official, on condition of anonymity.
“It had many antennas, a set probably capable of collecting and geolocating communications,” he added in a statement. The balloon “was equipped with solar panels large enough to provide the energy necessary to operate multiple sensors collecting intelligence”, he further specified.
A “small part” of the recovered surveillance equipment
Washington on Saturday (February 4th) shot down a balloon off its Atlantic coast that had flown over sensitive military sites and had been described by Beijing as a “civilian aircraft used for research purposes, mainly meteorological”. This diplomatic clash had led the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken to postpone a rare visit to China.
The American authorities are still busy collecting the debris from the balloon in the Atlantic, near the coast of South Carolina. An FBI official, who is in charge of examining them, said only a “small part” of the surveillance equipment had been recovered. “The exhibits that were recovered and brought to the FBI are very limited,” he said, adding that they are being examined at federal police labs in Quantico, Virginia. What has been recovered so far was floating on the surface of the ocean, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Most of the equipment, including the large solar panels, sank to a depth of 14 meters when the balloon was shot down on February 4. The FBI did not specify whether these parts had been located but warned that bad weather could hamper their recovery.
In the small sample that the FBI examined, “analysts found no explosive or offensive material that could pose a danger to the American population”, specifies the CNN news channel.
A fleet sent over more than 40 countries
The United States believes the balloon was controlled by the Chinese military and was part of a fleet sent by Beijing over more than 40 countries on five continents for espionage purposes. “We are convinced that the manufacturer of the ball has a direct link with the Chinese military,” added the senior State Department official. He said that Washington was weighing possible measures against Chinese entities linked to the ball, which could indicate possible sanctions to come.
During a congressional hearing, a Pentagon official defended the US military’s decision not to shoot down the balloon off Alaska as soon as it entered US airspace. January 28.
It would have been much more difficult and “extremely dangerous” to recover it in the icy waters of the North Pacific, more than 5,000 meters deep, noted Melissa Dalton, in charge of North America at the Ministry of Defense. “We continuously monitored and evaluated it, and we learned more about China’s spying capabilities and techniques,” she said.
Lively exchanges in the Senate
The elected members of the American House of Representatives unanimously denounced “the use by the Chinese Communist Party of a spy balloon”, considering that it is a “brazen violation of the sovereignty of the United States “. This resolution condemning China’s espionage activities is “a rare show of bipartisan unity”, stresses The Washington Post.
As noted the international courier, the exchanges were particularly heated in the Senate, where “visibly angry” elected officials questioned the Pentagon representatives on “the reasoning” behind the government action, and in particular the decision not to shoot the ball down sooner, says CNBC . “I don’t want a damn balloon floating over the United States, when we could have shot it down over the Aleutian Islands”, off the coast of Alaska, exclaimed the Democratic senator from Montana Jon Tester.
The intrusion of this balloon into American airspace has caused a new diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Washington. China confirmed Thursday (February 9) that it declined a phone call from Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin on Saturday, shortly after the balloon was destroyed. “This irresponsible and seriously erroneous act has not created a climate conducive to dialogue and exchanges between the two armies”, justified the Chinese Ministry of Defense in a press release.
“Although senior US officials say they want to keep communication channels open with China, conflicting accounts of the nature of the ball are divisive,” analysis The New York Times. “And the Biden government has launched an information campaign with several countries on the extent of the Chinese spy balloon program” in the hope that “other nations will mobilize against the activities” of Beijing, observes the daily.