ISLAMABAD: The Chinese spy balloon that transited the United States (US) earlier this year captured imagery and gathered signals intelligence from US military sites, according to a source familiar with the situation.
As per a source, the balloon was able to transmit data back to Beijing in real-time, and the government of the US is still determining whether the Chinese government could wipe the data as it was received. This raises the question of whether the balloon was able to collect intelligence that the US is still unaware of.
Nonetheless, according to the person, the intelligence community has not been overly concerned about balloon-gathering information because it is not much more sophisticated than what Chinese satellites can gather as they orbit over similar locations.
According to a US intelligence official, “although analysis of the wreckage of the High Altitude Balloon remains ongoing, its flight over the United States (US) does not appear to have provided critical new insights to the People’s Republic of China thus far.”
Chinese spy balloon entered US airspace
The balloon first entered US airspace in late January, then passed through Canada and down into Montana. It hovered for several days, leading the US to believe it was spying on sensitive military sites such as Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.
The surveillance program, which includes several similar balloons, is run in part from the small Chinese province of Hainan. The US does not know the exact size of the Chinese surveillance balloon fleet, but according to CNN, the program has conducted at least two dozen missions across at least five continents.
As per one official familiar with the intelligence, roughly half of those flights were within US airspace but not necessarily over US territory.
According to CNN, China has maintained that the balloon was a simple weather balloon that was thrown off course, and the United States has been assessing the possibility that it was not deliberately directed into the continental US by the Chinese government.
Officials believe China did retain some ability to manoeuvre the balloon. Once the balloon was over Montana, China seemed to use its position to hover over sensitive sites and gather intelligence.
