The spy balloon that flew over the United States last week was part of a “surveillance fleet” deployed by the Chinese military that has targeted more than 40 countries across five continents, a US official said on Thursday.
Detailed images taken by high-altitude U2 spy planes showed the balloon’s payload equipment “was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment on-board weather balloons”, the senior State Department official said.
“It had multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geolocating communications,” the official said in a statement, on grounds of anonymity.
“It was equipped with solar panels large enough to produce the requisite power to operate multiple active intelligence collection sensors.
A US fighter jet shot the balloon down over the Atlantic on Saturday after it had crossed much of the country, overflying areas where the US keeps nuclear missiles in underground silos and bases with strategic bombers.
The incident led US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel an imminent trip to Beijing that had been long in planning and aimed at improving communications between the two rival superpowers.
FBI examines recovered material
An official of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is tasked with examining the balloon, said Thursday that so far only a “very small” part of the balloon’s payload of spying and power electronics has been recovered.
“The evidence that has been recovered and brought to the FBI is extremely limited,” the official said, adding that it was being examined at the FBI’s laboratories in Quantico, Virginia.
What was recovered so far was floating on the surface of the water, the official said.
The larger part of the payload, including sprawling solar panels, sunk in around 14 meters of water after the balloon was shot down.
The FBI did not say whether the main payload pieces had been located, but warned that looming bad weather could hinder the recovery.
The State Department official indicated that the US believes the balloon was under the control of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and is part of a fleet of balloons that China has sent over more than 40 countries on five continents to collect intelligence information from foreign military sites.
“We know these balloons are all part of a PRC [People’s Republic of China] fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations,” the official said.
“We are confident that the balloon manufacturer has a direct relationship with China’s military.”
The official said the United States was weighing taking action against Chinese entities linked to the balloon’s operation, which suggests it might slap them with sanctions.
Pentagon defends shootdown decision
Earlier on Thursday, Beijing confirmed that it refused an overture on Saturday by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for phone discussions with Chinese counterparts over the balloon issue.
“This irresponsible and seriously mistaken approach by the US did not create a proper atmosphere for dialogue and exchanges between the two militaries,” China’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
In a Congressional hearing Thursday, US Assistant Secretary of Defense Melissa Dalton defended the Pentagon’s decision not to shoot the balloon down when it first entered US airspace over the waters of Alaska on January 28.
Ms Dalton said the cold and icy seas by Alaska, which plunge to around 5486 metres, would have made recovery much more difficult and “extremely dangerous”. As it flew over Alaska and northwest Canada, she said, “we continued to track and assess the balloon, learning more about [China’s] capabilities and tradecraft”.
In Beijing on Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning accused the US of waging “public opinion warfare”.
“On the airship, the Chinese side has repeatedly shared its information,” she told reporters.
“The unintended, unexpected entry of the unmanned Chinese civilian airship into US airspace is entirely caused by force majeure. The Chinese side has made that clear in its communication with the US side time and again, yet the US overreacted by using force. China firmly opposes and deplores this.”
The spokeswoman said she was “not aware of any ‘fleet of balloons’”.
“That narrative is probably part of the information and public opinion warfare the US has waged on China,” she said.
“As to who is the world’s number one country of spying, eavesdropping and surveillance, that is plainly visible to the international community.”
US House condemns Chinese balloon
Meanwhile, US lawmakers on Thursday unanimously denounced China’s use of the suspected spy balloon.
The vote allowed lawmakers to agree on a bipartisan stance on Beijing, after several balloon-related political skirmishes.
The balloon’s days-long flyover from Alaska to South Carolina captivated the attention of regular Americans and officials alike, before the US military shot it down off the east coast Saturday.
The House of Representatives passed a resolution “condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s use of a high-altitude surveillance balloon over United States territory as a brazen violation of United States sovereignty”.
Republicans heavily criticised President Joe Biden’s response to the incursion, accusing his administration of being weak in the face of Chinese aggression.
According to Mr Biden, military officials warned that falling debris could have posed a risk to the American population on the ground if the balloon — whose remnants ultimately ended up in the Atlantic Ocean — had been shot down earlier, while it was over land.
For congressman Michael McCaul, the resolution’s sponsor, the balloon affair offered a silver lining. “The good news is it galvanised the American people’s opposition to Chairman Xi [Jinping]’s communist regime,” he said.
A Pentagon official told a separate Senate hearing Thursday that the United States is still trying to figure out what exactly the balloon, which it says was deployed for espionage purposes, was looking for.
“We have some very good guesses about that,” assistant defense secretary Jedidiah Royal said, adding that experts were “learning more as we exploit the contents” of the balloon.
‘China can be deterred on Taiwan’
Also on Thursday, a senior US official voiced optimism that China could be deterred from invading Taiwan over this decade, a contrast to more dire predictions from Washington.
“I think they have intention. But absolutely, I think we can get to the end of this decade without them committing major aggression against Taiwan,” Ely Ratner, the top Pentagon official for Asia, said of China.
Responding to a question at a Senate hearing, Mr Ratner said that the United States was “laser-focused on maintaining deterrence today, tomorrow and into the future”.
A senior US officer, Air Mobility Command chief General Mike Minihan, recently made waves by predicting war with China.
“I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” General Minihan wrote in a memo to forces on readiness.
He pointed to the 2024 elections in Taiwan and said that China could view the United States as distracted due to its own presidential elections.
But Mr Ratner, asked about the memo, said that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the rest of the Defense Department “do not believe that an invasion of Taiwan is imminent or inevitable”.
China claims Taiwan, a self-governing democracy and major technological hub, and has not ruled out force to “reunify” with the island.
The United States supplies weapons to Taiwan and President Joe Biden has gone further by signalling a willingness to commit US troops in a Chinese invasion.