Suspected Chinese balloon did not collect or send information, Pentagon claims
By Jadenne Radoc Cabahug, staff writer Jesse Johnson contributed to this report
The alleged Chinese spy balloon shot down by the U.S. earlier this year did not collect intelligence as it traveled across the United States, the Pentagon has said, months after the incident sent Sino-U.S. relations into a tailspin.
“We were aware that it had intelligence collection capabilities, but it has been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States,” Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman, said Thursday.
A preliminary analysis of the balloon by U.S. authorities showed that it included a combination of U.S.-made off-the-shelf equipment as well as sophisticated Chinese gear that allowed it to take photos, videos and other information, media reports said earlier this week, contradicting Chinese claims that it was a weather device blown off course.
China’s Foreign Ministry reiterated this stance on Thursday, calling the accusations “nothing but a smear against China.”
The balloon flight and dramatic shoot down deflated hopes at the time of improving U.S.-China ties, prompting Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a planned visit later in February to Beijing — a trip that was not rescheduled until Blinken traveled to the Chinese capital for talks in mid-June.
Blinken said in an interview shortly before wrapping up his visit to Beijing, which included talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, that the trip was a “starting point” in stabilizing ties and that the two powers should move on from the balloon incident.
“That chapter should be closed,” Blinken said.
Beijing has accused some in the U.S. of deliberately hyping up the balloon incident, and the latest news of U.S.-made components and lack of transmissions back to China, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, hinted at what could be leaks to the press intended to scuttle any rapprochement.
The Journal report said Chinese officials had expressed concern that should the U.S. authorities report on the balloon become public, Beijing would be forced into a strong reaction, potentially derailing the high-level engagement agreed to during Blinken’s visit.
Bill Bishop, a longtime China watcher and creator of the Sinocism newsletter, said it was “remarkable” that China “thinks it has leverage over the U.S. to force it to not release a report about a spy balloon that violated U.S. sovereignty.”
“You have to give the (Chinese) side credit, they played a weak hand expertly against the Biden Administration,” Bishop wrote in a tweet Friday.
In the wake of the U.S. shoot down, Japan confirmed earlier this year that at least three unidentified objects that flew over the country since 2019 were “strongly suspected” to have been Chinese spy balloons.
The first object flew over Kagoshima Prefecture in November 2019. Other objects were detected over Miyagi Prefecture in June 2020 and Aomori Prefecture in September the following year.
Although the Defense Ministry did not elaborate on how they concluded the objects came from China, the announcement came after further analysis following the U.S. shoot down.
This week the BBC reported that balloons crossed East Asia, releasing new images, including one in northern Japan taken in early September 2021. The Chinese government did not respond when asked for comment on the latest images.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry told China that future flying objects entering the country’s airspace without permission would constitute an intrusion and would be shot down.
The central government has said that the Self-Defense Forces, which are bound by strict rules regarding the use of weapons, can shoot down unmanned flying objects that enter Japan’s airspace, after these regulations were eased following the U.S. shootdown.
Despite this, some observers have said that the SDF would face a number of obstacles to actually shooting down a spy balloon, including pilots’ skills and actually obtaining permissions to take out the objects.
“We were aware that it had intelligence collection capabilities, but it has been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States,” Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman, said Thursday.
A preliminary analysis of the balloon by U.S. authorities showed that it included a combination of U.S.-made off-the-shelf equipment as well as sophisticated Chinese gear that allowed it to take photos, videos and other information, media reports said earlier this week, contradicting Chinese claims that it was a weather device blown off course.
China’s Foreign Ministry reiterated this stance on Thursday, calling the accusations “nothing but a smear against China.”
The balloon flight and dramatic shoot down deflated hopes at the time of improving U.S.-China ties, prompting Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a planned visit later in February to Beijing — a trip that was not rescheduled until Blinken traveled to the Chinese capital for talks in mid-June.
Blinken said in an interview shortly before wrapping up his visit to Beijing, which included talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, that the trip was a “starting point” in stabilizing ties and that the two powers should move on from the balloon incident.
“That chapter should be closed,” Blinken said.
Beijing has accused some in the U.S. of deliberately hyping up the balloon incident, and the latest news of U.S.-made components and lack of transmissions back to China, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, hinted at what could be leaks to the press intended to scuttle any rapprochement.
The Journal report said Chinese officials had expressed concern that should the U.S. authorities report on the balloon become public, Beijing would be forced into a strong reaction, potentially derailing the high-level engagement agreed to during Blinken’s visit.
Bill Bishop, a longtime China watcher and creator of the Sinocism newsletter, said it was “remarkable” that China “thinks it has leverage over the U.S. to force it to not release a report about a spy balloon that violated U.S. sovereignty.”
“You have to give the (Chinese) side credit, they played a weak hand expertly against the Biden Administration,” Bishop wrote in a tweet Friday.
In the wake of the U.S. shoot down, Japan confirmed earlier this year that at least three unidentified objects that flew over the country since 2019 were “strongly suspected” to have been Chinese spy balloons.
The first object flew over Kagoshima Prefecture in November 2019. Other objects were detected over Miyagi Prefecture in June 2020 and Aomori Prefecture in September the following year.
Although the Defense Ministry did not elaborate on how they concluded the objects came from China, the announcement came after further analysis following the U.S. shoot down.
This week the BBC reported that balloons crossed East Asia, releasing new images, including one in northern Japan taken in early September 2021. The Chinese government did not respond when asked for comment on the latest images.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry told China that future flying objects entering the country’s airspace without permission would constitute an intrusion and would be shot down.
The central government has said that the Self-Defense Forces, which are bound by strict rules regarding the use of weapons, can shoot down unmanned flying objects that enter Japan’s airspace, after these regulations were eased following the U.S. shootdown.
Despite this, some observers have said that the SDF would face a number of obstacles to actually shooting down a spy balloon, including pilots’ skills and actually obtaining permissions to take out the objects.