Pentagon: Downed spy balloon part of larger Chinese surveillance program [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Pentagon officials confirmed that the downed spy balloon is part of a “larger Chinese surveillance balloon program.”
• The People’s Liberation Army had been running the program over five continents since 2018.
• U.S. officials said that the latest balloon incident helped them learn more about the program’s capability.

The Chinese spy balloon shot down over the weekend was linked to a global surveillance program, senior military and national security officials said on Wednesday.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had been running the program out of China’s Hainan Island province off its southeast coastline in the South China Sea. According to a report by The Washington Post, the program also operated in neighboring nations such as India, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

Pentagon officials also recently confirmed that such balloons flew over the U.S. before but were only detected after the fact using intelligence methods.

Earlier this week, Fox News confirmed that a Chinese spy balloon crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii and was discovered four months ago. Three balloons had also flown over Florida, Texas, and Guam during former President Donald Trump’s administration.

On Wednesday, Department of Defense press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters that the latest balloon incident helped them increase their “awareness and understanding” of the “Chinese balloon surveillance program, which U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon have been observing for several years.”

Ryder said that the program has operated “over at least five continents in regions like Latin America, South America, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Europe” since 2018.

The PLA’s surveillance program mostly used satellites, but Beijing also saw the balloons as another means to gather intelligence. These balloons can hover between 60,000 and 80,000 feet above Earth, way above commercial flight paths.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing that “these balloons are part of a PRC [People’s Republic of China] fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations,” thus violating several nations’ “sovereignty.” 

China has repeatedly described the balloon as a weather balloon that veered off course and said shooting it down was an “overreaction.”

U.S. defense officials have refuted these claims.

Several lawmakers questioned why the administration took so long to shoot it down. John Kirby, National Security Council strategic communications coordinator, told reporters on Monday that the decision to wait until the balloon was safely over the Atlantic provided “a terrific opportunity to gain a better understanding to study the capabilities of this balloon.”

He said that authorities also “took steps to mitigate whatever collection capability the balloon would have over our sensitive military sites.”

On Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman briefed nearly 150 diplomats from 40 embassies across the world were briefed on China’s espionage program.

Some details were also shared with allies like Japan, which has been targeted by China before.

Source: Fox News