Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said the U.S. needs answers about the Chinese surveillance balloon that passed over the country earlier this month.
“As a member of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), I’m deeply concerned with the news of the CCP spy balloon hovering over Montana. We need answers from the CCP about their surveillance of critical assets like the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, which holds our ICBMs and a full briefing from the administration before Secretary (Anthony) Blinken’s visit,” Khanna told State Newswire.
The balloon traveled across the country until the U.S. military shot it down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, NPR reported. Defense officials said they were working with the FBI and counterintelligence agencies to recover debris from the balloon, including “any material of intelligence value.” One senior defense official said, “We don’t know exactly all the benefits that will derive. But we have learned technical things about this balloon and its surveillance capabilities. And I suspect if we are successful in recovering aspects of the debris, we will learn even more.”
The U.S. Department of Defense announced on Feb. 2 that it was tracking an intelligence-gathering balloon, most likely launched by China. Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a briefing that this balloon is not the first of its kind to be spotted over the U.S. At the time, another senior official said the department 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 at the briefing. The official said an assessment showed that it was large enough to cause damage from the debris field if shot down.
“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,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a release. “The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into U.S. airspace due to force majeure.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken delayed his planned trip to China, 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, one of three U.S. Air Force Bases that house the U.S. arsenal of Minuteman III ICBMs, according to the Malmstrom website. Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, said the area of Montana over which the balloon was flying was not densely populated, so the balloon could have been shot down without civilian casualties.
Khanna, who represents California's 17th Congressional District, was recently appointed to serve on the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, according to a release.
He plans to bring attention to the trade deficit with China and address the security risk China poses to Taiwan, the release reported.
“We can be tough on the Chinese Communist Party while unequivocally condemning anti-Asian racism and the increase in hate crimes targeting the Asian American community,” Khanna said, according to the release.
