- Madeline Halpert
- BBC News – Washington
The airship is spotted in the skies over North Carolina
A US official said the Chinese surveillance balloon, which was shot down by the US this week, is capable of collecting communication signals.
The senior State Department official told a news conference that the balloon was equipped with antennas capable of “gathering intelligence.”
On Thursday, US lawmakers approved a non-binding motion against China over the balloon case.
China denied that the balloon was for espionage purposes, and said it was a weather monitoring device that had lost its way. But the United States believes that the balloon is one of a group of balloons that roamed 5 continents.
Members of the House of Representatives called the balloon “a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the United States.” The indictment was approved by a total of 49 votes to zero.
The appearance of the airship in US airspace sparked a diplomatic crisis between the two countries, which prompted US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to cancel his visit to China. It was the first visit at this level in years. The US military used fighter jets to shoot down the balloon in the Atlantic Ocean this week.
China said the decision to shoot down the balloon was “irresponsible” and “does not create a suitable atmosphere for dialogue” between the two countries.
The pictures show, according to the US official, that the balloon, which is 60 meters long, carries large solar panels that can operate “intelligence gathering devices” and antennas capable of capturing and locating communications.
The US State Department said Washington was considering taking action against groups linked to the Chinese government that may have been involved in sending the balloon.
The FBI said its laboratories are analyzing balloon debris it has collected, including a parachute, wires and electronic components, picked up from the sea.
Investigators are searching for the remains of the airship deep in the ocean, off the coast of South Carolina. Officials cautioned that analyzing the components could take a long time due to difficult weather conditions.
According to the latest information provided by the US authorities, the device is a type of surveillance balloon.
“This type of antenna is designed for surveillance technology, and that’s something you wouldn’t expect in a science mission,” says Gregory Falco, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University.
It is not yet possible to predict the nature of the information that China seeks to collect with this balloon, but experts believe that it may have monitored mobile phone and radio communications in the military area over which the balloon flew.
Falco adds that the balloon’s large solar panels, and the idea that it has been in US airspace for so long, is worrying.
“They have high-powered systems that can transmit a huge amount of data. I don’t know what they were collecting, but all the hardware is there to transmit data to their satellites,” he said.
Dr. Matt Cornig believes that the United States may have taken countermeasures to prevent China from collecting data, including jamming devices.
However, Falco believes that the intervention was “late and limited”, as there is a time difference between the work of the device and the United States’ attention to the balloon and its move against it.
Sessions in Congress on Airship
Intelligence, military, and State officials began reporting on the blimp to members of Congress.
These sessions came after the opposition criticized President Joe Biden and his administration for handling the balloon issue.
Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rusger Wicker published an open letter saying they “don’t understand” the government’s handling of the balloon issue.
General Douglas Sims told the senators that “the risks of China’s balloon intelligence gathering are low to moderate.”
As for the risks of harming civilians if it were to fall on land, it was “medium to great”.
Officials also defended the timing of the balloon’s downing. If, in their opinion, they had dropped it in difficult terrain in Alaska or in the cold waters of the North Pacific, the process of extracting it would have been difficult and dangerous.
And Defense Ministry spokesman Pat Rabder confirmed on Wednesday in a press conference that similar balloons flew in the skies of North and South America, and in the skies of Southeast Asia, East Asia and Europe.