Published: February 9, 2023
At left, Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, Director for Operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff, leaves a closed-door briefing for House members about the Chinese spy balloon at the U.S. Capitol Feb. 9, 2023 in Washington, DC. Military and administration officials are briefing both houses of Congress today about the U.S. response to China's use of a spy balloon in American airspace. (Image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
NATO General Secretary Jens
Stoltenberg warned on Feb. 8, during a joint press conference with Secretary of
State Antony Blinken, that China’s surveillance flight program is a threat to
“global” security after the Pentagon revealed that it had confirmed Chinese
surveillance craft over Europe, North America, South America and many parts of
Asia.
In addition, the Biden
administration said on Thursday that China’s military is likely responsible for
a massive aerial spy program that has targeted upwards of 40 nations on five
continents with high-altitude surveillance balloons.
Stoltenberg argued that the
Communist Party incursions demonstrates the importance of international
security organizations like NATO, adding that China represents a security
threat not only to the United States but to the globe.
“The Chinese balloon over the
United States confirms a pattern of Chinese behavior, where we see China over
the last years has invested heavily in new military capabilities, including
different types of surveillance and intelligence platforms,” Stoltenberg said
adding that, “And we’ve also seen Chinese intelligence activities in Europe –
again, different platforms. They use satellites, they use cyber, and, as we’ve
seen over the United States, also balloons.”
The recent incident, which
saw the U.S. shoot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over the
Atlantic Ocean, has further deteriorated U.S.-Ch
Immediately after the
shoot-down, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, attempted to contact his
counterpart, Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, however China rejected his request to
speak, Fox News reported.
READ MORE:
- Politicians
Hype Threat of Chinese Spy Balloon That Floated Across US Before it Was
Shot Down
- Canadian
Universities Collaborating With Chinese Military Scientists in Academic
Research
- Is
the US Gearing Up for a War With Pandemic-weakened China?
A vast surveillance program
On Thursday, a senior State
Department official provided the most detail to date concerning the balloon
incident, linking China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to the balloon and
stating that China has developed a vast surveillance program.
China is accused of violating
international law and U.S. sovereignty by flying its balloon over the
continental United States.
China continues to deny any
wrongdoing and even claimed on Thursday that U.S. accusations about the balloon
amount to “information warfare” against Beijing.
The U.S. has concluded that
the balloon was “capable of conducting signals intelligence collection” and had
multiple antennas and equipment designed to upload sensitive information, after
examining the balloon in flight using American U-2 spy planes.
Signal collection is a branch
of military intelligence concerned with the monitoring, interception, and
interpretation of radio signals, radar signals and telemetry.
“The official said an
analysis of the balloon debris is ‘inconsistent’ with China’s explanation that
it was a weather balloon that went off course,” Spectrum News NY reported.
He said the U.S. is in
contact with other countries that have also been targeted to discuss the scope
of the Communist Party’s surveillance program.
Following the meeting between
Blinken and Stoltenberg on Wednesday Blinken said that they “also discussed the
systemic and tactical challenges that China presents to the alliance and the
broader international system,” adding that the U.S. is analyzing parts of the
recovered balloon to gather more information about the equipment and the data
it was intended to collect.
READ MORE:
- Chinese
Android Phones Awash With Spyware, New Research Reveals
- Remove
China’s Trade Privileges to Stop Funding Communist Abuses: NJ Rep. Chris
Smith
- Chinese
Interest in Private Health Insurance Spikes as Pandemic Smolders
More information coming
Blinken said that the U.S.
will be releasing more information in the coming days as they continue to
salvage the balloon. The U.S. is utilizing underwater rescue teams and unmanned
underwater vehicles to retrieve the debris.
Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon
Press Secretary, told reporters on Wednesday that the balloon and four previous
ones that flew over U.S. territory are “part of a larger Chinese surveillance
balloon program … that’s been operated for several years.”
“What we do know is that in
some cases, whereas some of these balloons previously had not been identified,
subsequent intelligence analysis did enable us to indicate that these were
Chinese balloons in terms of where they’re coming from,” Ryder said.
Ryder believes that the
incursions are helping U.S. authorities identify Chinese spying, telling
reporters, “This last week provided the United States with a unique opportunity
to learn a lot more about the Chinese surveillance balloon program, all
information that will help us to continue to strengthen our ability to track
these kinds of objects.”
He didn’t comment further on
what U.S. locations or data the previous balloons tracked but said they were
“looking to surveil strategic sites to include some of our strategic bases in
the continental United States.”
https://www.visiontimes.com/2023/02/09/chinas-balloon-program-a-threat-to-global-security-nato-chief-says.html
No comments:
Post a Comment