Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recuperate a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Feb. 5, 2023.
Photo: U.S. Navy
The US will explore taking motion against entities connected to China’s military that supported the flight of a Chinese spy balloon into U.S. airspace last week, a senior State Department official said on Thursday.
Washington is confident that the manufacturer of the Chinese balloon, shot down by the U.S. military last weekend off the U.S. East Coast, has a “direct relationship” with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the official said in a press release.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre echoed the notion that Washington would have a look at taking motion, however the U.S. government has not specified what measures are into consideration.
Jean-Pierre told reporters the US would also have a look at broader efforts to “expose and address” China’s larger surveillance activities that pose a threat to U.S. national security and to allies and partners.
The FBI, which is leading efforts to research recovered stays of the balloon, told reporters in a briefing that it had obtained only limited physical evidence and didn’t yet have enough information to evaluate its capabilities.
“It’s totally early for us on this process, and the evidence that has been recovered and dropped at the FBI is incredibly limited,” a bureau official said.
FBI officials said they still didn’t have access to nearly all of the balloon’s “payload” where a lot of the onboard electronics were likely carried, and that much of it stays underwater.
Individually on Thursday, speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman highlighted the flight of the Chinese balloon as one other sign of Beijing’s efforts to reshape the international order.
“This irresponsible act placed on full display what we have long recognized: that the PRC (People’s Republic of China) has turn into more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad,” Sherman told the hearing.
Sherman said Washington would proceed to dam China from using U.S. technology to advance its military modernization.
“The PRC is the one competitor with the intent and means to reshape the international order,” Sherman said, adding that the balloon’s violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law was the “latest example of that reality.”
Nevertheless, Sherman said she hoped Washington and Beijing would find a way to proceed to work together on problems with shared concern such a climate change “at this difficult time.”
POLITICAL OUTRAGE
The spectacle of the Chinese balloon drifting over the US last week caused political outrage in Washington and brought into sharp focus the challenge posed by China to the US and its allies.
It prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a visit to Beijing that each countries had hoped would patch up frayed relations. Blinken would have arrived in Beijing Sunday.
As an alternative, Thursday’s slew of briefings and hearings highlighted the political pressure that President Joe Biden’s administration remained under to handle the incident.
Democratic and Republican U.S. lawmakers sharply criticized the U.S. military and the Biden administration for failing to shoot down the balloon when it first entered U.S. airspace, and as an alternative waiting every week to accomplish that. The House of Representatives voted 419-0 for a resolution condemning China for the balloon incursion.
U.S. lawmakers have demanded more information from the Biden administration concerning the incident.
“I hate to disappoint you. We have not learned anything greater than what everyone at all times knew,” Senator Bob Menendez, the Democratic chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said after emerging from a classified briefing given by administration officials on the balloon on Thursday.
The U.S. Air Force downed the balloon off South Carolina on Saturday, every week after it entered U.S. airspace. China’s foreign ministry has said it was a weather balloon that had blown off beam and accused the US of overreacting.
On Monday, the US briefed 150 foreign diplomats in Washington and sent information to its missions around the globe to share details concerning the balloon incident.
On Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed U.S. charges that the balloon was a part of a worldwide spying fleet, saying that allegation could possibly be a part of a “U.S. information war against China.”
PLA-LINKED MANUFACTURER
Within the statement released by the State Department, the senior official said the balloon manufacturer has a direct relationship with China’s military and is an approved vendor of the People’s Liberation Army.
The corporate also advertises balloon products on its website and hosts videos from past flights, which appear to have overflown U.S. airspace and the airspace of other countries, the official said, without naming the business.
The official said the US has collected high-resolution imagery of the balloon from U-2 aircraft flybys that exposed it was able to conducting signals intelligence collection operations.
China had conducted similar surveillance flights over greater than 40 countries on five continents, the official said.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told a briefing later that activity had occurred “over the course of several years.”
