5 things we learned about Chinese spy balloons this week

Lili Pike

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One week ago, the nation was transfixed by a Chinese balloon flying over the U.S., and the Pentagon seemed to be downplaying the risks. One week later, U.S. officials have gone to great lengths to publicize the risks and describe what they say is a worldwide problem of such incursions by China. And on Friday, the U.S. went so far as to shoot down another flying object — this one the size of a car, according to the Pentagon — that was hovering over Alaska.

A lot has happened in one week.

The tables have turned in the Chinese balloon saga — the observer is now being observed. Since the balloon was shot down off the South Carolina coast on Saturday, Navy divers have already salvaged some of the remnants in the Atlantic. Those remnants, along with U.S. observation of the balloon while it was still in flight, have helped shed light on its mission.

At the same time, U.S. officials have been releasing information about the capabilities of surveillance balloons generally and the Chinese military’s use of them. These releases are in part a refutation of China’s narrative that it was merely a civilian airship, and they paint a very different picture from the one put forward last week. At the Pentagon’s first press conference about the balloon, a senior Defense official said, “Currently we assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective.”

Now, officials are suggesting the balloon was part of a much wider surveillance program that the Chinese military has been conducting for years. As lawmakers and U.S. officials debate how to respond to this at once novel and old-fashioned phenomenon, here are some of the week’s key revelations.

1. A huge payload

From the beginning, the Pentagon said, “We are confident that this high-altitude surveillance balloon belongs to the PRC,” even as the Chinese government argued that it was just a meteorological airship that had been carried off course by strong winds.

The information that has come out since not only appears to confirm that the balloon was indeed on a surveillance mission but also offers a sense of the balloon’s size and capabilities. U.S. officials said that the balloon was carrying a “jetliner”-sized payload and added Thursday that it was equipped with antennas and sensors that could pick up communication. That was ascertained by an old-school U-2 spy plane that was tracking the balloon as it soared across the country last week, the Wall Street Journal reported. The equipment suggests that the balloon was able to provide information that a typical satellite cannot, although that remains unclear, but at the very least, such balloons can hover over one location longer.

Reporting also revealed that the balloon’s manufacturer has direct ties to the Chinese military.

2. China has been spy ballooning worldwide

As the balloon incident unfolded, it became clear that this wasn’t the first Chinese spy balloon to enter U.S. airspace. The U.S. government initially acknowledged in vague terms that there had been prior balloon incidents; in recent days, more information has come out about those flights. According to the Defense Department, they were not recognized as surveillance balloons at the time but were later identified as such. These balloons were sighted near Florida, Guam, Texas and Hawaii — where a balloon crashed in June. Three of the incidents occurred during the Trump administration, the department said.

Apparently, the U.S. hasn’t been the only target. According to information released by U.S. officials, Chinese spy balloons have surveilled at least 40 countries in recent years. The Washington Post reported that the U.S. government had identified Chinese balloons spying on military assets in Japan, India, Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan. Indeed, as news has circulated about the balloons, reports have emerged about sightings of mysterious orbs going back several years. Weather officials in Taiwan and citizens in Japan said they’d seen balloon-like shapes in the sky. Some people thought they’d spotted a UFO, a Japanese official told the Washington Post, adding “in hindsight, people are realizing that was a Chinese espionage balloon.”

According to New York Times reporting on the Chinese balloon program’s history, in recent years, the Chinese military identified balloons as a way to strengthen its surveillance system.

3. The Pentagon’s rationale for not shooting the balloon sooner

Many Republican and Democratic lawmakers have criticized the Department of Defense for not shooting the balloon down as soon as it entered U.S. airspace over Alaska. Their argument — expressed at length in the first Senate hearing on the balloon on Thursday — was that the U.S. should have prevented the balloon from gathering any further intelligence and sent a stronger signal to China that entering U.S. airspace is unacceptable.

At the hearing, Pentagon officials defended their decision not to shoot the balloon down sooner. One key reason? They said they needed time to assess China’s intent. “We think before we shoot, and in this case we thought before we shot,” Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, the director for operations of the Joint Staff, told the Senate panel. He also argued that the Pentagon was aware that it might be setting a precedent that could be applied by another country to U.S. aircraft in the future.

The Defense officials also said the balloon wasn’t near sensitive military sites in Alaska, and they argued that the balloon-recovery effort would have been more difficult in deeper and colder Alaskan waters.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and the other senators did not seem fully satisfied with those answers. The Senate panel’s unanimous critique of the handling of the balloon case highlighted what is now a bipartisan anti-China consensus on Capitol Hill.

4. The Chinese military has gone radio silent on the U.S.

After the balloon was shot down on Saturday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attempted to use a special hotline to contact China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe about the U.S. decision. Austin’s call went unanswered. The Chinese ministry said that was intentional. “Given that this irresponsible and seriously wrong approach by the U.S. did not create the proper atmosphere for dialogue and exchanges between the two militaries, China did not accept the U.S. proposal for a phone call between the two defense ministers,” Tan Kefei, a Chinese defense ministry spokesperson, said on Thursday.

This exchange, or lack thereof, reflects concerns U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed about the gaps in crisis communication between the two militaries — communication lines that would be all the more important in a higher-stakes situation. Standing high-level military-to-military dialogues between the two countries were canceled by China after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan last August and have yet to be resumed. The fear is that even a small-scale incident in the South China Sea or Taiwan Strait could escalate rapidly with these channels shut down.

5. The Biden administration may retaliate further

Along with the indefinite postponement of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing and the shooting down of the balloon itself, the Biden administration has signaled that it may take further measures to punish China for the balloon incident. The State Department said companies affiliated with China’s surveillance program, including the balloon program, may be added to a blacklist of companies that U.S. companies aren’t allowed to do business with.