Congressmen Mike Gallagher (R-WI), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), also a member of the committee, said in a joint statement that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) balloon flying over the U.S. represents a serious threat that must not be ignored. The Defense Department confirmed on Thursday that it was monitoring the surveillance balloon, but would not shoot it down, and said this balloon is not the first to have been spotted in U.S. airspace. Some have expressed concern that the balloon could be spying on sensitive intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) sites in Montana.
"The Chinese Communist Party should not have on-demand access to American airspace," Gallagher said in a press release. "Not only is this a violation of American sovereignty, coming only days before Secretary Blinken's trip to the PRC, but it also makes clear that the CCP's recent diplomatic overtures do not represent a substantive change in policy. Indeed, this incident demonstrates that the CCP threat is not confined to distant shores – it is here at home and we must act to counter this threat."
The U.S. Department of Defense announced that it was tracking an intelligence-gathering balloon, most likely launched by China, according to a press release. Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said at a briefing that this balloon is not the first of its kind to be spotted over the U.S. Another senior official said the department is not taking action to shoot the balloon down, but rather has decided to allow it to continue to float over Montana.
"It's happened a handful of other times over the past few years, to include before this administration," the official said. "It is appearing to hang out for a longer period of time, this time around, [and is] more persistent than in previous instances. That would be one distinguishing factor."
The official did not specify the size of the balloon, but said its size factored into the decision to not shoot it down.
"We did assess that it was large enough to cause damage from the debris field if we downed it over an area," the official said. "I can't really go into the dimension — but there have been reports of pilots seeing this thing, even though it's pretty high up in the sky. So ... it's sizable."
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson denied that the balloon's purpose is to gather intelligence, but instead said it was a research balloon that had blown off course, according to a statement.
"The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course," the spokesperson said. "The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into U.S. airspace due to force majeure. The Chinese side will continue communicating with the U.S. side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure."
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has decided to delay his planned trip to China as a result of the balloon, the National Review reported. The balloon flew over Alaska and Canada before arriving in Montana, where a senior defense official told NBC it seemed to be monitoring Malmstrom Air Force Base, where U.S. ICBM sites are located. Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, said the area of Montana over which the balloon was flying is not densely populated, so the balloon could easily be shot down without civilian casualties.
“We should have shot it down,” Zinke said. “It’s embarrassing. Because the U.S. faces clear and present danger with the Chinese and we can’t shoot down a balloon over rural Montana? The Chinese did not do this on accident. So to me, it was a poke in the eye. But also, I think it’s inexcusable that we allowed a balloon, unopposed to come in and basically over America. And I’m sensitive to it because it’s over Montana and then they said, 'Well, we evaluated it, but we decided not to on the basis of potential civilian casualties in Roosevelt County,' you know, or the Aleutian chain. I don’t buy it.”
Former U.S. Navy Intelligence Officer Jack Posobiec said on a Timcast livestream on Thursday that the country needs to think about what in Montana is of interest to the CCP.
"I guarantee you it's not just farmland...one of the three fields where we have them [nuclear silos], about 150 nuclear, long-range, nuclear-tipped missiles, the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) that are within range of China," Posobiec said. "These are not the only ones, but this is a key component of the U.S. nuclear triad, which is located in Montana specifically...Malmstrom [Air Force Base] is the one that has them."
A former CIA officer, Mike Baker, expressed concern on Joe Rogan's podcast last year that the Chinese were targeting American ICBM sites in the West by facilitating the installation of Huawei telecommunications equipment nearby, State Newswire reported in August. Baker cited an FBI investigation which found that Huawei equipment “was capable of capturing and disrupting highly restricted Defense Department communications, including those used by U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons."
"Let's look at a Chinese company like ZTE or Huawei and let's try to understand why would they possibly be giving away their products, basically, at dirt cheap prices? Why would they be interested in acquiring land in a particular area?" Baker said on the podcast. "Huawei is now the largest producer of telecoms gear in the world. They do all the plumbing – they do the antennas, they do the routers, they do the servers. You look at a cell tower now anywhere in the Midwest or out West, and it's likely got Huawei or ZTE or other Chinese components on that cell tower. And one of the reports that the bureau came out with after a lengthy investigation looks at the I-25 corridor, it goes up Wyoming, Colorado, that area, along the border of Nebraska. They did a deal with a regional telecoms provider out there and they now have, over the years, they've put their equipment – Huawei has – onto these cell towers that go up and down these corridors. Well, the other thing that's up and down this corridor is a variety of military bases and an enormous number of ICBM sites for our nuke program."
