By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

There Is Likely A Third Operating Elsewhere

A US warplane has shot down a Chinese high-altitude balloon over the Atlantic Ocean after it had crossed the entire US and caused a diplomatic rift between the two countries.

The incursion led the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to cancel a planned visit this weekend to Beijing, where he had been due to meet President Xi Jinping to discuss tensions between the two countries.

The airship, which Pentagon officials characterized as an attempt by Beijing to collect intelligence on the U.S. military, was shot down off the South Carolina coast.

President Biden had authorized the takedown on Wednesday, instructing the Pentagon to act “as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s path, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement confirming the operation. In brief remarks to reporters, the president said: “They successfully took it down. And I want to compliment our aviators who did it.”

The discovery of this military spy balloon and others, the presence of a second craft loitering over Latin America was disclosed on Friday, and officials say there is likely a third operating elsewhere, is highly embarrassing to the Chinese.

Beijing reportedly was “freaked” by the incident. They’re in a very tough place and have few cards to play right now.

Meanwhile, the US has deployed multiple Navy and Coast Guard vessels to recover as much debris as possible. They have reportedly secured a perimeter and instructed people not to touch or remove any debris from the balloon.

Besides divers, unmanned vessels that can go down to get the structure and lift it back up on the recovery ship are also being used. The FBI officials are also on board as well. Other counterintelligence authorities are categorizing and assessing the platform itself. The remains will be taken to an FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, for analysis by FBI experts and intelligence agencies.

A senior defense official portrayed the delay in downing the craft as an intelligence coup for the United States. I provided us with several days to analyze this balloon and through several means … to learn a lot about what this balloon was doing, how it was doing it, why the People’s Republic of China (PRC) may be using balloons like this,” the official said.

 

An Eye (Very) High In The Sky

The balloon floating over the United States appears to match the general characteristics of an aerospace balloon.

The craft entered Alaskan airspace a week ago, on 28 Jan. It crossed north of the Aleutian Islands and over mainland Alaska before entering Canadian airspace on Monday. On Tuesday, it reentered American airspace over northern Idaho, one day before it was spotted over Montana by civilians, prompting a ground stoppage at the airport in Billings. U.S. officials considered shooting it down then, but planners could not mitigate the risk to people on the ground.

The balloon's presence in the mainland United States was disclosed to the public on Thursday after appearing over Montana, where it loitered near Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to several nuclear missile silos. Its path from there took it over several U.S. military installations, officials disclosed Saturday. Without elaborating, officials said that the administration had thwarted the craft’s ability to collect information that would undermine U.S. national security.

The balloons are part of an extensive Chinese military surveillance program that has been running for years and relies on technology from a Chinese company that supplies the People’s Liberation Army.

Before Saturday’s takedown, U.S. officials said they believed the balloon, outfitted with propellers on the bottom, could drift with air currents and be directed. It has changed course on several occasions, they said. The balloon’s payload or bay, which contained suspected surveillance equipment, is roughly the size of three large buses, they said.

 

But there is still much the United States does not know. “We know these are military intelligence systems,” an official said. “We don’t know how capable they are. We don’t know what they are tracking, and we don’t know how they’re getting the information back [to the PLA].”

China said today, Sunday, it “reserves the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations,” following the United States' decision to shoot down a high-altitude balloon.

“The US used force to attack our civilian unmanned airship, which is an obvious overreaction. We express solemn protest against this move by the US side,” China’s Defense Ministry spokesperson Tan Kefei said in a local statement on Sunday afternoon.

Taiwan said today that the Chinese balloon incident "should not be tolerated by the civilized international community."

"Such actions by the Chinese Communist Party government contravene international law, breach the airspace of other countries, and violate their sovereignty," Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It called on China's government to "immediately cease conduct of this kind that encroaches on other countries and causes regional instability."

Blinken says US to share info on alleged spy balloon with allies.

 

 

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