From attempting to dialogue to confrontation. The Chinese balloon, which was dropped by an expensive missile launched by a US Air Force F-22 Raptor off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, is the event that fueled the tension between Washington and Beijing.
The balloon, detected by the Pentagon while flying over American airspace, sparked diplomatic, military and intelligence debates: The news that it had been found in the skies of Montana, where several US military bases are located, arrived a few hours after the US visit. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in China (to be held on February 5 and 6). With a predictable outcome: The White House canceled Blinken’s trip, which revived hopes of a diplomatic reopening between the two great powers.
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Aim? Knows the defense capabilities of foreign countries
But last week’s case raises the issue of espionage again and is receiving great geopolitical attention. The United States claims that the person shot was a spy balloon used by the People’s Republic of China to monitor strategic U.S. territories. China, on the other hand, continues to claim it is a civilian airship because it collects weather data that deviates from its course due to bad weather. Before long, however, Beijing moved from initial regrets to threats of retaliation.
Whether the balloon is there accidentally or an obvious military move, its appearance raises many questions about how China uses different tools to learn foreign countries’ defense capabilities.
It’s certainly not the first time the Pentagon has seen a Chinese bubble over the US sky. It was during Donald Trump’s presidency that three spy balloon attacks were recorded off the coast of the United States and classified by the Pentagon as an “unidentified weather phenomenon”. However, US intelligence showed a certain reluctance to report how many and what types of spy balloons violated US airspace, so as not to provide opposing countries with important information.
US intelligence released its first “unclassified” report only in June 2021, where it presents 144 foreign airship cases recorded from 2004 to 2021, but provides no explanation for most of the accidents analyzed. Since the publication of this document, the Pentagon has stepped up its efforts to discover and describe the phenomena attributed to the flight of balloons. John Kirby also confirmed a caution recently, with the words of a spokesperson for the US National Security Council: “From all the indications we have, ‘previous flights’ were of short duration, unlike anything we saw last week”. January 6 refers to the Chinese bubble that spent most of last week over the United States.
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How long was your flight? U.S. officials first detected the Chinese balloon in U.S. airspace on January 28, after it passed near the Aleutian Islands and crisscrossed Canada and Alaska, according to the route reviewed by NORAD, the Joint Air-Space Defense Command of Canada and the United States.
Why should we drop the Chinese spy bubble?
The United States hopes to gather valuable information about China’s operations because the Chinese balloon fleet operates on all continents: other aircraft were seen over Taiwan and Latin America last week, as confirmed by the Colombian Air Force. however, this ruled out any threat to national security.
The line between civilian and military use of these balloons has gradually narrowed. In the most surprising evidence of the military use of stratospheric balloons, Beijing media, including the military channel of state broadcaster CCTV, reported in September 2018 that the high-altitude balloon was testing hypersonic missiles. CCTV video footage broadcast in the application douyin (TikTok in Mandarin) and now deleted, showing a “visually identical balloon” to the balloon that was recently caught and dropped in South Carolina. monetary Times – turned out to be three different types of missile warheads.
According to Chinese media reports and a related article from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, these were models for “wide-range fast” hypersonic vehicles that could fly both below and above the speed of sound. Three bus-sized balloons, dropped on February 4, fall into the category that usually fly between 24km and 37km above the earth’s surface (airplanes almost never fly more than 12km).
In general, Chinese research on “light-than-air” vehicles belongs to two institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one of which is specifically dedicated to high-altitude balloons: it is in line with the policy of “military-civilian fusion”. By Beijing calling for the development of civil or commercial operations technology, which is also available for military use when necessary. The British newspaper writes that these efforts are closely integrated with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), research institutes and the military-industrial complex and are therefore subject to secrecy.
State media, remember Finance TimesHe only occasionally praised the achievements of national “light-than-air” vehicle programs, such as the launch of the Yuanmeng airship in 2015 and the airship with a 5G base station in September 2022. Apart from the 2018 missile test, Beijing remained silent on balloon flights like the last one over the US, and military analysts say this is most likely because foreign countries are paying attention to their military practices.
Why are you using spy balloons instead of satellites?
How convenient is it for a technologically advanced country like China to use balloons instead of satellites? These systems are some of the oldest technological forms of surveillance. It is certainly true that balloons are also used for scientific purposes such as weather monitoring, including by the Chinese Meteorological Institute, the China Meteorological Administration.
But several Chinese documents testify to a growing interest in using balloon technology for military purposes. The most recent, in chronological order, was published last April by researchers at a People’s Liberation Army institute, highlighting the utility of balloons in testing enemy air defenses. “The balloon can activate the enemy’s air defense system, providing details about the electronic reconnaissance system, but also about the early detection and operational response capabilities of air defense systems,” Chinese researchers said. This interest is confirmed by the amount of funds put on the plate by the Chinese Army. The PLA invests a significant portion of its $209 billion security budget into espionage. But according to Washington, the amount may be higher, but it is unknown as it lurks in the folds of the national budget.
Balloons do not offer the same level of surveillance as satellites, but they are easier to recover and much cheaper to launch. To send a satellite into space, you need a space launcher, a piece of equipment that typically costs hundreds of millions of dollars. However, balloons can also launch from lower altitude terrain and spend more time in a given area because they move more slowly than satellites, according to a 2009 report from the U.S. Air Force College of Air Command and Staff.
Then there is another reason. Most likely, China wanted to send a message to the US: to let them know that the Asian giant continues its technological advancements by copying the achievements of US hi-tech. Bad awareness for Washington, which has recently launched a semiconductor trade war against the People’s Republic of China in an attempt to limit its technological progress.
Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
