TAIPEI, Taiwan — Long before an unmanned Chinese airship floating over the United States grabbed the world’s attention, Taiwan may have glimpsed Beijing’s ambitions to turn balloons — seemingly so old-fashioned and ponderous — into elusive tools of 21st-century military power.
Residents in Taipei and elsewhere on the island have spotted and photographed mysterious pale orbs high in the sky at least several times in the previous two years. But few people here, even officials, gave them much thought then. Now, Taiwanese officials are grappling with whether any of the balloons were part of China’s growing fleet of airborne surveillance craft, deployed to gather information from the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own.
The incursions have come into focus since the United States identified and shot down the Chinese balloon that had spent days traversing the country. Beijing has protested the balloon’s downing, asserting that it was a civilian ship doing scientific research. But American officials say that the balloon was part of a global surveillance effort targeting the military capabilities of various countries.
China’s surveillance airships are likely operated by the Strategic Support Force, experts say, a relatively new and often secretive arm of the Chinese military that carries out electronic surveillance and cyber operations. The force emerged from the Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s drive to modernize the People’s Liberation Army, including expanding its intelligence capabilities, spanning from satellites in space to vessels deep undersea, said Su Tzu-yun, an analyst at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei.
The balloons should be understood as one part of its electronic spying system,” he said in an interview. Even data that the balloons can gather about humidity and air currents may be militarily useful, he said. If China ever launches missiles, “this atmospheric information could improve their accuracy.”
A review of Chinese military studies, newspaper articles and patent filings illuminates the range of Beijing’s interests and ambitions with balloons.
Chinese military scientists have been studying new materials and techniques to make balloons more durable, more steerable and harder to detect and track. People’s Liberation Army researchers have also been testing balloons as potential aerial platforms from which to fire weapons.
