A lot of scandals, especially those accompanied by denials and contradictory stories begin with, “when did he know and when did he know it?” The Chinese spy balloon situation is no different. There are still mixed messages and contradictions as to who in the government knew about the Chinese surveillance program.
After initially insisting that NORAD couldn’t spot the balloons and the administration had no idea, we’re getting extensive information about the program’s operations.
The surveillance balloon effort, which has operated for several years partly out of Hainan province off China’s south coast, has collected information on military assets in countries and areas of emerging strategic interest to China including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines, according to several U.S. officials, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Officials have said these surveillance airships, operated in part by the PLA air force, have been spotted over five continents.
“What the Chinese have done is taken an unbelievably old technology, and basically married it with modern communications and observation capabilities” to try to glean intelligence on other nations’ militaries, said one official. “It’s a massive effort.”
Did the Biden administration warn allies about it? Apparently not because they’re just now getting briefed.
On Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman led a briefing on China’s balloon espionage for some 150 people from about 40 embassies, said a senior administration official familiar with the matter. The department has also sent to every U.S. Embassy a “detailed information” on the espionage that can be shared with allies and partners.
Separately, U.S. officials have begun to share specifics with officials in countries such as Japan whose military facilities were targeted by Beijing.
“There has been great interest in this on the part of our allies and partners,” said a senior administration official.
I’m sure they are since they were also targeted and we appeared to have told them nothing. This is not how you hold an anti-China alliance together. We’ve done little enough to convince countries in Asia that we’re serious about North Korea, never mind China, and this isn’t likely to instill confidence in anyone.
In Japan in 2020, an aerial orb drew speculation. “Some people thought this was a UFO,” said a Japanese official. “In hindsight people are realizing that was a Chinese espionage balloon. But at that time it was purely novel — nobody had seen this. … So there’s a lot of heightened attention at this time.”
And only now we’re briefing the Japanese, arguably our closest allies in the region, that they were being spied on.
Analysts still don’t know the size of the balloon fleet, but there have been “dozens” of missions since 2018, said one U.S. official.
For an administration that claimed to know nothing, it suddenly seems to know a lot.
That gave me a flash of insight. Maybe the reason for the balloon fleets is that it is the most economical way to gather intelligence.
I was reading that Napoleon could have had balloons to aid his war efforts, but he wasn’t interested. Oddly Napoleon missed a lot of opportunities to exploit new technology, he had a reputation as a great strategist, but was oddly weak about some other military areas.
Were they used much in warfare before our Civil War? I know that they were popular novelties, but wondered if many generals thought of using them for a birds-eye view of troop movements, battles, and so forth.
The French were clever back then, and were the first to make balloons workable, but it was the good old Americans during the Civil War who first used them on a larger scale.
The French and Austrians apparently thought of using them though, during the earlier 1800s.
Napoleon ended up in Elba. Not a good end. I would take it, though.
Yeah he was good at shooting at sphinxes and pyramids but he failed when it came to Russia.
Balloons are old technology but they’re quite effective.
Since the Biden administration doesn’t take our own national security seriously why would it take that of our allies any more so?
I think the Biden administration IS taking our national security seriously. This is not the neglect of unseriousness, but the focussed intention and action of deadly seriousness. Obama ran Spanish-language ads, with our tax dollars, in Mexico and other nations south of the border to explain how to get here and access our welfare programs. The use of religious and other NGO’s to facilitate massive population transfer here is increasing – using our religious organizations who access tax dollars to subsidize the efforts (with handsome salaries for staff).
The administration FIGHTS any effort by a border state to control the millions of illegal aliens who are now coming in. This is VERY serious, and the intent is clear. Our own government aims to destroy and diminish us so that we can be easily acquired to serve our global masters.
Biden has been greatly enriched by China. His addled brain has let go of much, but it still holds a laser focus on the sources of his money. Truly the love of money is the root of all evil.
This is called damage control 101
The only thing the vile and useless Dumb-o-crats can be relied upon is glaring and indefensible dishonesty, fecklessness, stupidity and incompetence.
These idiots are incapable of cleaning toilets, much less governing and defending the U.S. and standing up to the world’s malignant despots and regimes.
Why did it take so long to finaly shoot the thing down why did Biden just stand and do nothing You can bet if this had happened under Trump the M.S. Media would have feeding frenzie but since its Biden we hear the Crickets
Yeah, those bitches shot it down when it didn’t matter anymore. It had already transversed the whole continental US. It was over the Atlantic. Biden is a l little bitch.