Chinese balloon used US tech to Spy on Americans

Preliminary US findings show the craft collected photos and videos but didn’t appear to transmit them, officials say.

The Chinese spy balloon over Billings, Montana, in February. Picture: AFP

The Chinese spy balloon that floated over the US early this year was loaded with American-made equipment that helped it collect photos, videos and other information, US officials said, citing preliminary findings from a closely held investigation.

Several defence and intelligence agencies, along with the FBI, have analysed the debris retrieved after the US military detected and shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina on February 4 in an event that added fresh, unexpected volatility to the already fraught US-China relationship.

That analysis found the balloon was crammed with commercially available US gear, some of it for sale online, and interspersed with more specialised Chinese sensors and other equipment to collect photos, video and other information to transmit to China, the officials said. Those findings, they said, support a conclusion that the craft was intended for spying, not weather monitoring as Beijing has said.

The officials described the Chinese balloon, with its mix of off-the-shelf and specialised equip-ment, as an inventive attempt by Beijing at surveillance.

While the balloon took in data during its eight-day passage over Alaska, Canada and a swath of contiguous US states, the craft didn’t appear to send that information back to China, the officials said. They declined to say whether the craft malfunctioned, although the Pentagon has said the US military employed countermeasures to prevent information collection by the balloon.

The balloon’s detection and shootdown derailed a fledgling effort at rapprochement between Washington and Beijing, leading to recriminations and compounding distrust and tensions between the two powers. Only in recent weeks have the Biden administration and the communist leadership begun a fragile reset, with both suggesting they want to consign the balloon to the past.

President Joe Biden earlier this month called the balloon “more embarrassing than it was intentional” for the Chinese leadership.

So long as it doesn’t happen again, “that chapter should be closed”, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week during a visit to Beijing rescheduled after he postponed a February trip over the balloon.

Meanwhile, Chinese officials have expressed concern that should the US investigators’ report on the balloon become public, Beijing will be forced into a strong reaction, potentially derailing high-level engagement.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is expected to travel to Beijing early next month, following a course set by Mr Blinken, and both governments are trying to engineer a meeting between Mr Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping later this year.

Parts of the US military, including the Defence Intelligence Agency, wanted to put on public display parts of the balloon’s debris, the officials said. The Defence Department did something similar in 2017 with Iranian weapons used in Yemen and the Persian Gulf to show what the Pentagon described as Tehran’s malign activity in the Middle East.

So far, the administration has decided to not publicly share its findings on the balloon, one of the officials said.

Members of Congress have been pressuring the administration for what it knows about the balloon’s capabilities and why it permitted the craft to pass over bases for intercontinental ballistic missiles and other potentially sensitive military facilities. Some have criticised the administration for delaying release of a report to avoid another blow to US-China relations.

Suspended from the balloon, the officials said, was a satellite-like device with sensors, solar panels for power and other devices to scoop up photos, take videos and capture radar data. With a propeller, the craft could manoeuvre and loiter over a site for long periods, depending on weather, the officials said. Investigators traced purchase orders for some of the equipment and the purchasers’ relationship to the Chinese government.

The Pentagon has said the balloon was part of a global surveillance program by China, with balloons being detected over Europe, Asia and Latin America, as well as the US.

The Wall Street Journal