Technology from American companies enabled a Chinese spy balloon to gather information as it drifted across America two years ago, according to a new report.
The report from Newsweek, which it said was based on sources it did not name and who had access to a report from analysts who examined the balloon’s pieces, said the balloon’s “tech payload equipped the balloon to survey and take photographs and collect other intelligence data.”
“The balloon might also have been carrying launchable gliders that could collect more detailed data, since it had empty storage bays,” Newsweek quoted the sources as saying, adding that research papers from Chinese sources said such gliders have been developed.
Newsweek said, its sources had reviewed a 75-page analysis of the parts from the balloon, which was shot down while just off a South Carolina beach. It said the analysis was conducted by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center in Ohio.
The sources said, at least five American companies provided the technology used in the balloon.
Defense contractor Iridium told Newsweek it could not foresee how its products might have been used and noted some buyers re-sell products.
The company admitted having partners in China but did not name them.
“We certainly don’t condone our radios or our modules ending up and being used in ways they shouldn’t be,” said Jordan Hassim, Iridium’s executive director for communications.
“There’s no way for us to know what the use is of a specific module. We need to know the module specifically. For us it could be a whale wearing a tag tracking it, it could be a polar bear, an explorer hiking a mountain,” he said.
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The Iridium communications module could be sold to China without a license unless the end user was prohibited from receiving it, Hassim said. The module billed as “the critical data communications necessary for truly global solutions” sells for about $150.
Other companies whose products were helping China spy on America were Texas Instruments, Omega Engineering in Connecticut, Amphenol All Sensors Corporation, and onsemi, Newsweek reported, adding that products from STMicroelectronics of Switzerland were also in the balloon.
Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics said they did not know their components were in the balloon. Other companies did not reply.
Newsweek noted that a Chinese patent “describes a communications system for exactly such a balloon as the one that crossed America, based on using a satellite transceiver from a U.S. company that the balloon’s controllers in China would use to communicate with it and that would send data back.”
American technology was necessary, one source told Newsweek.
“A Chinese company would not have given them full satcom coverage over the U.S.” a source was quoted as saying.
Weeks after the incident, former President Joe Biden downplayed the significance of the balloon, according to The Hill.
“I don’t think the leadership knew where it was and knew what was in it and knew what was going on,” he said then.
“It was, I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional,” he said.
However, even before any analysis was done, in an interview immediately following the balloon being shot down, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas said the balloon was a major national security threat.
“I think the motivation intent is clear here — [the CCP wants] to get imagery and intelligence on our military capability, particularly nuclear, and they’re building quite a nuclear stockpile themselves. Why do they want to do this? … They are preparing for a military conflict, and they’re trying to collect information about our military capabilities in the U.S. in preparation for that conflict,” McCaul said in an interview posted to his website.
“There’s no question about it in my mind, and that’s why that balloon was so dangerous for the president to allow it to go forward once it entered U.S. airspace around Alaska. It should have been immediately shot down. It was not, and now the damage is severe in terms of compromising national security,” he said.
“He can’t secure our borders, but now he can’t secure our airspace over the United States of America. President Biden’s response to the CCP’s provocation is betraying the nation.”
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