China's balloon over the U.S. seen as bold but clumsy espionage tactic
By Steve Holland, Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) -China's flight of a suspected surveillance balloon over the United States appears to mark a more aggressive - albeit puzzling - espionage tactic than relying on satellites and the theft of industrial and defense secrets, security experts said.
Both the United States and China have for decades used surveillance satellites to keep an eye on each other from the air. But China's recent balloons - a White House official said this week's episode was not the first - have some in Washington scratching their heads.
"In a way, it's more amateurish," said former White House national security adviser John Bolton. "Do the cameras in their satellites not have high enough resolution that they have to send a balloon over?"
The uproar over the balloon comes as China has been building up its military capabilities and challenging America's military presence in the Pacific. The United States also believes Beijing routinely seeks to capture proprietary information and knowledge from U.S. companies.
China on Friday said the balloon was for civilian meteorological and scientific purposes. It has previously rebuffed accusations of espionage and said the United States holds a Cold War mentality and hypes up the 'China threat.'
The balloon discovered this week appeared deliberately provocative, said Dean Cheng, senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
"This is a way to test how does the other side respond, not in a military sense. But politically, what do you do about it? Do you keep it quiet? If there have been in fact many and this is not the first time, then it raises an interesting question. What happened to the previous ones? Did we shoot them down?” he said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said in 2020 that the greatest long-term threat to U.S. information and intellectual property was "the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China."
China's alleged clamor for American trade secrets has been so sweeping that the FBI estimated last October that it was opening a new Chinese counter-intelligence operation every 12 hours.
A more common spying tactic by China in recent decades, experts say, has been to use graduate students and other individuals with ties to China to gain access to sensitive materials by studying at research universities, working at technology companies or hacking into their computer networks.
"The problem with China is far more in the academic, scientific world," said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who is involved in various national security cases.
"There is no doubt that that dynamic is changing and the Chinese are becoming more aggressive for whatever reason."
The United States has been also been accused of spying by China.
Before the use of spy satellites, the United States used high-altitude aircraft that could not easily be shot down and flew them over the Soviet Union, China and Cuba, for example.
U.S.-China relations plunged in April 2001 when a U.S. Navy EP-3E signals intelligence aircraft collided with a Chinese fighter jet in mid-air over the South China Sea about 70 miles away from China's Hainan province.
In 2009, the Pentagon said five Chinese ships including a naval vessel harassed U.S. Navy ship the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed ocean surveillance vessel, in international waters off Hainan. China said the U.S. ship was carrying out an illegal survey off the island province.
Reporting by Steve Holland, Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Heather Timmons, Don Durfee and Edwina Gibbs
면책조항: XM Group 회사는 체결 전용 서비스와 온라인 거래 플랫폼에 대한 접근을 제공하여, 개인이 웹사이트에서 또는 웹사이트를 통해 이용 가능한 콘텐츠를 보거나 사용할 수 있도록 허용합니다. 이에 대해 변경하거나 확장할 의도는 없습니다. 이러한 접근 및 사용에는 다음 사항이 항상 적용됩니다: (i) 이용 약관, (ii) 위험 경고, (iii) 완전 면책조항. 따라서, 이러한 콘텐츠는 일반적인 정보에 불과합니다. 특히, 온라인 거래 플랫폼의 콘텐츠는 금융 시장에서의 거래에 대한 권유나 제안이 아닙니다. 금융 시장에서의 거래는 자본에 상당한 위험을 수반합니다.
온라인 거래 플랫폼에 공개된 모든 자료는 교육/정보 목적으로만 제공되며, 금융, 투자세 또는 거래 조언 및 권고, 거래 가격 기록, 금융 상품 또는 원치 않는 금융 프로모션의 거래 제안 또는 권유를 포함하지 않으며, 포함해서도 안됩니다.
이 웹사이트에 포함된 모든 의견, 뉴스, 리서치, 분석, 가격, 기타 정보 또는 제3자 사이트에 대한 링크와 같이 XM이 준비하는 콘텐츠 뿐만 아니라, 제3자 콘텐츠는 일반 시장 논평으로서 "현재" 기준으로 제공되며, 투자 조언으로 여겨지지 않습니다. 모든 콘텐츠가 투자 리서치로 해석되는 경우, 투자 리서치의 독립성을 촉진하기 위해 고안된 법적 요건에 따라 콘텐츠가 의도되지 않았으며, 준비되지 않았다는 점을 인지하고 동의해야 합니다. 따라서, 관련 법률 및 규정에 따른 마케팅 커뮤니케이션이라고 간주됩니다. 여기에서 접근할 수 있는 앞서 언급한 정보에 대한 비독립 투자 리서치 및 위험 경고 알림을 읽고, 이해하시기 바랍니다.
