A Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down by an American fighter jet may have drifted into the mainland’s airspace at least partially by mistake, officials have revealed.
The US had tracked the balloon from its launch from China’s Hainan Island as it cruised across the Pacific Ocean before entering North American airspace above Alaska’s Aleutian islands on 28 January, according to The Washington Post. The publication spoke with intelligence officials briefed on the matter.
For one week before it was shot down on the other side of the country, monitors reportedly watched the balloon settle on a flight path that appeared to have sent it towards the US territory of Guam, thousands of miles from Alaska and far from previous Chinese surveillance efforts near military installations in Guam and Hawaii, officials told the newspaper.
Military officials and the White House are studying whether that apparent sudden turn was intentional. They believe it was likely to surveil US military sites over the Pacific.
The paper reported that the balloon’s surprise drift across the US sparked confusion among Chinese agencies and diplomats, who scrambled to assemble a cover story to describe the aircraft as a civilian weather balloon that had drifted off course. US analysts are apparently examining the possibility that China didn’t intend to enter the US mainland at all, The Post reported.
Other emerging details about the decisions made among US and Chinese officials reveal some confusion and critical misreadings among the world powers that boiled over into partisan battles and media frenzy.
US officials reportedly told The New York Times that a self-destruct function did not operate when the balloon entered North American airspace over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, though it is unclear whether the operators refused to detonate the device or if it failed.
Officials also told the newspaper that they believe that China then may have been reluctant to detonate the balloon once it was over the mainland, fearing political fallout if the debris had caused any damaged below.
It also is unclear whether operators misread wind currents that carried the balloon in and out of American airspace or allowed it to drift to see what it could collect, The Times reported, echoing similar findings from intelligence officials who spoke with The Post.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and deputy secretary Wendy Sherman issued a formal notice to a senior Chinese diplomat at about 6.30 pm ET on 1 February, telling him that his government must do something about the balloon.
More than 24 hours later, Chinese foreign ministry officials in Beijing spoke privately to diplomats in the US Embassy to tell them the balloon was a harmless civilian machine that had gone off course, according to the newspaper.
Early on 4 February, Chinese officials told their US counterparts that operators were trying to speed it out of the country, but by then the Biden administration was planning to shoot it out of the sky once it reached the coast of South Carolina.
The details also follow a “leading” theory from intelligence officials that three other recently shot-down objects were used for commercial or other “benign” purposes.
“The intelligence community is considering as a leading explanation that these could just be balloons tied to some commercial or benign purpose,” White House National Security Council strategic communication coordinator John Kirby told reporters on 14 February.
Officials have ruled out that those objects are government vessels, and intelligence suggests they are not linked to China, Mr Kirby said.
“We don’t know of any evidence right now that confirms that they were in fact doing intelligence collection by another government,” he said.
After floating over Alaska, the surveillance balloon drifted towards Canada, where strong winds appear to have pushed it slightly south into the continental United States.
Strong high-altitude winds likely pulled it off course, though the aircraft was directed in part by air currents and also piloted remotely; it was outfitted with propellers and a rudder, officials told The Post.
Though its crossing into American airspace and proximity to nuclear sites in Montana were likely not accidents, Beijing is believed to have seized on the opportunity to collect intelligence while over the mainland, officials said.
President Joe Biden initially asked the military to explore options to shoot it down, though military advisers recommended that the administration wait until the craft no longer posed a threat to come crashing down on people or structures below.
Defense officials also testified to a Senate panel last week that shooting the balloon at first sight over Alaska would have risked forfeiting valuable materials to frozen waters that are thousands of feet deep.
An F-22 Raptor jet fired a Sidewinder missile at the balloon on 4 February, and it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean into water roughly 50 feet deep, 10 miles off the coast of South Carolina.
