China continues to brazenly deny that it is using a fleet of high-altitude balloons to conduct surveillance and intelligence-gathering missions all around the world. Indeed, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is sticking to its mantra that ‘the balloon in question is a Chinese unmanned civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research purposes’.
However, American examination of the balloon as it floated over North America, and recovery of debris from coastal waters off South Carolina after the shoot-down on 4 February, will show that this was definitely a spy balloon with a payload approaching one ton.
The US DoD unequivocally noted, ‘These balloons are all part of a PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries. These kinds of activities are often undertaken at the direction of the People’s Liberation Army [PLA].’
Indeed, the PLA has been blithely flying balloons across the sovereign airspace of the USA and more than 40 countries for at least several years, according to American officials. One crashed off Hawaii four months ago, and they have been seen over diverse places like Asia, the Pacific and South America.
These balloons represent a massive program by the PLA, which probably thought it had hit the mother lode of surveillance. After all, for years nobody bothered about ‘innocent’ balloons meandering overhead. Furthermore, if one is destroyed, China can simply play the ‘meteorological balloon’ card and blame force majeure.
The fact is that China has been caught red-handed, and the communist regime cannot bear to admit that it has been illegally violating the sovereign airspace of foreign countries.
China’s marauding balloons have been launched from both Hainan Island and near Siziwang Banner in Inner Mongolia.
One interesting facet of this very public episode is who made these balloons. The US government has added six companies to its sanctioned entity list, and they include state-owned CETC and Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology. Obviously, this program is characteristic of the deliberate military-civil fusion that China is pursuing.
Surveillance balloons are very much integral to PLA efforts, and various articles have been published in the PLA Daily to promote their utilization. For example, one article in early 2020 noted how near space ‘has become a new battleground in modern warfare’. It predicted, ‘In the future, balloon platforms may become like submarines in the deep sea, a silent killer that brings terror.’
Another article published on 24 December 2021 discussed missions such as scouting, surveillance, communications relay (if satellites are knocked out), air defence and guiding airstrikes. Perhaps other possibilities are as motherships for drone swarms or for launching missiles.
Balloons do offer an alternative to satellites. They can loiter for hours, have no infrared signature, have minimal radar cross-sections, and are far cheaper to deploy than satellites. Chinese balloons have some degree of maneuverability, although they are ultimately at the mercy of winds.
After than F-22A fighter splashed the Chinese balloon, Senior Colonel Tan Kefe, PLA spokesman, warned, ‘We…reserve the right to take necessary measures to deal with similar situations.’
This is a solemn tit-for-tat threat from Beijing. It is likely that American military assets flying over the South China Sea, East China Sea and Taiwan Strait, particularly unmanned ones, are now at risk from a malevolent PLA.
As Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, commander of the US Office of Naval Intelligence, warned latterly: ‘I’ll be very honest with you. It’s very unsettling to see how much the US is not connecting the dots on our number one challenge … It’s disturbing how ill-informed and naïve the average American is on China. I chalk this up, if I could summarise, into a China blindness. We face a knowledge crisis and a China blindness problem.’
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