Factum Perspective: The Chinese “spy balloon” saga
By Rathindra Kuruwita
On February 1, 2023, former editor of Billings Gazette Chase Doak and Billings Gazette photographer Larry Mayer snapped a large flying object over Billings, Montana.
Doak had initially thought it was a UFO. The photographs were published in the Gazette, and were soon picked up by major news agencies.
On February 2, US Department of Defense and the Canadian Department of National Defense announced that North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had been aware of a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon in US airspace for a few days. The balloon was passing several sensitive military sites, the US military said.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) admitted that the balloon was theirs. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said that the balloon was “a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes”, adding that, “[a]ffected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course.” She claimed that China regretted the unintentional incident.
The United States initially refused to accept the Chinese explanation. The media was making wild speculations and the Republicans were insisting that Biden was being too soft on China. The Biden administration had to demonstrate that it is committed to national security.
Thus, the Pentagon rejected China’s claim that the balloon was not being used for surveillance and had only limited navigational ability. However, some weather experts claimed that the Chinese assertion that the balloon had gone off course was not unfeasible.
Speaking to the Associated Press, Dan Jaffe, a Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of Washington, said that “wind patterns known as the Westerlies carrying a balloon to the western United States was absolutely possible – not possible, likely.”
The US Secretary of State Blinken postponed a scheduled diplomatic visit to China. Had it gone through, it would have been the first such visit since 2018.
On February 4, the balloon was shot down off the coast of Surfside Beach, South Carolina, the first recorded by a F-22 and the first of an aircraft over US territory since. Now it was the PRC’s turn to reassure the Chinese that they would retaliate against US aggression. Two days later, Mao said that the US “hyped up the incident on purpose and even used force to attack” and called the shootdown “an unacceptable and irresponsible action.”
Why balloons?
It is a well-known fact that all major powers are spying on each other and on pretty much everyone else. A few years ago, it was revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had spied on senior officials of neighboring countries, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. One of the reasons why India objected to Chinese research vessel Yuan Wang 5 docking at Hambantota was the fear that the ship had the capacity to listen to Indian communications.
The US has insisted that Chinese balloons have operated over US territory on at least four occasions recently. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin claimed that “the Biden administration had flown more than 10 high-altitude balloons in its airspace over the past year.”
A question many people ask is why these technological powerhouses keep flying high-altitude balloon over each other’s territory, when they have more discreet means of gathering intelligence.
Balloons are one of the oldest forms of military aircraft. Despite having access to a large network of satellites, China, the US , and the UK are piling up significant resources to develop floating airships.
In 2022, China certified three hot air balloons produced by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, a government aerospace group. In May that year, Xinhua announced that “China’s self-developed floating airship, designed for atmosphere observation, reached a record altitude of 9,032 meters in Tibet Autonomous Region.”
Coincidentally, in the same month, Politico reported that the US government spent around USD 3.8 million on balloon projects over the past two years and planned to spend more than USD 27 million on the inflatable tech in fiscal year 2023. The balloons, according to the report, will collect data and transmit information to aircraft, and may eventually be used to scan for hypersonic weapons developed by China and Russia.
John K. Culver, a former Senior Intelligence Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, states that balloons can help fill gaps in the network of intelligence and surveillance satellites. He adds that balloons can collect data on atmospheric conditions as well as communications that cannot be captured by satellites.
However, as Department of Defense Press Secretary Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said, for China, the balloon flying over Montana “has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective.”
Why risk everything for limited additive value?
In recent months China has been on a charm offensive to minimize the friction between the US and themselves. During the meeting with US Secretary of State Blinken, a number of issues from Taiwan to Ukraine war were to be discussed. Blinken was to meet Minister of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang, and hoped to see President Xi Jinping as well.
With Blinken’s visit cancelled, a number of high-profile US politicians will visit Taiwan before anyone can go back to Beijing. All in all, these are not good developments for China-US relations, which both sides are desperate to stabilize.
Given what’s at stake, there seems to be no logical reason why China would send a “spy balloon” to appear in Montana a few days before Blinken had scheduled to leave for China. China has insisted that this was a civilian airship used for mainly meteorological research.
In 2022 Taiwanese officials found that People’s Liberation Army weather balloons were floating over their country. Despite speculations that these balloons were used for surveillance, Taipei accepted that these balloons were indeed weather balloons.
On 14 February, The Washington Post reported that “analysts are now examining the possibility that China didn’t intend to penetrate the American heartland with their airborne surveillance device”, and that perhaps the balloon may have indeed drifted over due to unexpected weather. The Post reported that US military and intelligence agencies had been monitoring the balloon as soon as “it lifted off from its home base on Hainan Island near China’s south coast”, and that it had taken “an unexpected northern turn”, although it was initially set to travel over Guam.
US officials told The Post that the balloon then encountered strong winds over Canada and had pushed the “balloon south into the continental United States.” This account “suggests that the ensuing international crisis that has ratcheted up tensions between Washington and Beijing may have been at least partly the result of a mistake.”
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that three unidentified objects downed since last Friday served commercial purposes, and were not used for spying.
Perhaps the Chinese were telling the truth all along.
The domestic audience
Looking at what was reported in the last two weeks, it is obvious that China and the United States were aware that weather balloons of both countries, which may or may not be used for surveillance, were travelling over each other’s territories. Given the marginal impact of these balloons, the defense and political establishments in both countries preferred to keep the incidents under wraps.
However, the most recent balloon was detected by civilians. Boosted by US media and the Republican Party, the Biden administration had to reassure people that they were not compromising on national security. The very same pressures were experienced by the government of the PRC.
After the media frenzy slowly subsides and the Republicans find other dragons to slay, Washington and Beijing will attempt to move past the “spy balloon” incident. Blinken is likely to meet China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, in Germany this week.
At the same time, given that the US has shot down the balloon, the PRC will also need to save its face. Whether the US is ready to help the PRC save face will determine whether Blinken would meet Yi, and whether relations between the two nations will deteriorate further.
Rathindra Kuruwita is a journalist and a researcher from Colombo, Sri Lanka. He holds a MSc in Strategic Studies from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU, Singapore. He was also a fellow at Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, USA, and a participant of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) conducted by the U.S. Department of State. He writes on security and international relations to several publications and has written extensively on the Sri Lanka-China relationship.
Factum is an Asia-Pacific focused think tank on International Relations, Tech Cooperation and Strategic Communications accessible via www.factum.lk.
The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the organization’s.
