WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats are pressing for major legislation to counter rising threats from China, but mere weeks into the new Congress, a bipartisan consensus is at risk of dissipating amid disputes about what steps to take and a desire among many Republicans to wield the issue as a weapon against President Biden. In […]
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Bristling against U.S. claims that Beijing may be poised to send “lethal support” to help Russia’s war in Ukraine, China accused the Biden administration on Monday of spreading lies and defended its close partnership with Russia. Later the same day, China’s most senior foreign policy official arrived in Moscow for talks, according to Russian state […]
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DEADHORSE, Alaska — Really? That’s it? The United States military is capable of many things, but finding the remnants of an unidentified flying object scattered across a blinding expanse of Arctic ice in minus-30-degree weather using six available hours of daylight is not one of them. The search for a downed U.F.O. began and ended […]
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DEADHORSE, Alaska — The United States has called off the search for two of the unidentified flying objects that the military shot out of the sky this month, raising the possibility that the devices will never be collected and analyzed, a U.S. official said Friday. The floating craft above North America have become a source […]
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WASHINGTON — Navy divers on Thursday completed an operation to recover pieces of the Chinese spy balloon that a U.S. fighter jet had shot down off the coast of South Carolina this month, according to U.S. Northern Command. The recovered debris was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s laboratory in Quantico, Va., for further […]
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“The Chinese military has written about a range of potential applications for balloons and drones in near space,” he added. “You can intercept communications that you can’t capture from space. You can loiter for longer periods of time over targets, study or interfere with an adversary’s radar, target enemy satellites and help guide strategic weapons.” […]
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American authorities are still examining the remains of the Chinese spy balloon, which fell into the Atlantic Ocean off the East Coast, while American and Canadian authorities are still trying to reach the remote areas of Alaska, the Yukon Territory and Lake Huron. The three most recent objects shot down by the Air Force were […]
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WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a pair of resolutions condemning China for sending a surveillance balloon over the United States, joining the House in formally decrying an incident that has prompted a bipartisan chorus of demands for accountability on Capitol Hill. The first of the two measures, written by Senator Josh Hawley, […]
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Other murky actions have challenged U.S. analysts trying to read Chinese intentions. On Jan. 28, when the balloon approached the Aleutian Islands and American airspace over Alaska in its off-course trajectory, the balloon’s self-destruct function did not activate, U.S. officials said. Chinese operators may not have wanted to destroy the balloon; it is also possible […]
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China accused the United States on Wednesday of flying high-altitude balloons over the western Chinese regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, pointing the finger at Washington amid growing scrutiny over Beijing’s global surveillance efforts. China’s claim comes two days after it first accused the United States of illegally flying balloons in its airspace, saying American airships […]
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It’s easy to let your imagination run wild when it comes to the unidentified flying objects now making frequent appearances over North America. At least one object was reported to be cylindrical, eerily suggestive of past imagined visitors. “The cylinder was artificial — hollow — with an end that screwed out!” wrote H.G. Wells in […]
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There is still a lot we don’t know about the Chinese spy balloon and the three other objects the U.S. military shot out of the sky in recent days. U.S. officials have not explained what kind of information the spy balloon was trying to obtain. They have revealed little about the other objects, though they […]
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Julian Barnes contributed reporting. The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, […]
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While many in the world see the Chinese spy balloon as a sign of Beijing’s growing aggressiveness, China has sought to cast the controversy as a symptom of the United States’ irrevocable decline. Why else would a great power be spooked by a flimsy inflatable craft, China has argued, if not for a raft of […]
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The United States is going to need a lot of missiles if its fighter jets are to shoot down every stray balloon that sets off a radar warning in American airspace. “At any given moment, thousands of balloons” are above the Earth, including many used in the United States by government agencies, military forces, independent […]
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U.S. agencies are still investigating the origins of the three mysterious objects that U.S. fighter jets shot down between Friday and Sunday on the orders of Mr. Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. Debris recovery efforts are underway at the sites in Alaska, the Yukon Territory in Canada and the Canadian side of […]
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The U.S. military shot down at least three unidentified flying objects over the weekend after a Chinese spy balloon that had invaded American airspace was downed on Feb. 4, setting off a diplomatic crisis. There are certainly more questions than answers at this stage, including what the objects were, their purpose and who sent them. […]
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The 2019 flight was not a one-off for Professor Wu and his team. The Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group, or EMAST, a Beijing-based company that Professor Wu co-founded in 2004, has claimed a series of other successes for them. Advances in high-altitude balloons held out the potential for “high resolution, long-lasting, stable communications, […]
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In the latest jab over aerial surveillance, China said on Monday that high-altitude balloons from the United States had flown over Chinese airspace without permission more than 10 times since the start of last year. China’s claims could not be immediately corroborated. But Wang Wenbin, a foreign ministry spokesman, said that it was a “common […]
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China’s spy balloons don’t make a lot of sense. At least not from a military perspective. A high-altitude balloon doesn’t do much that a small satellite in low-Earth orbit can’t do — and the satellite has the benefit of being practically invisible to the naked eye. It’s not even clear that a spy balloon is […]
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration clamped down on Friday on sales of some U.S. technology to several Chinese aviation and technology companies, as part of its response to a Chinese spy balloon that traversed U.S. airspace last week. The Commerce Department added five Chinese companies and one research institute to its so-called entity list, which […]
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WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday issued a bipartisan condemnation of the Chinese Communist Party for flying a spy balloon over the United States last week, unanimously approving the move after Republican leaders rebuffed a right-wing faction that had pressed to rebuke President Biden personally for how the incident was handled. The Chinese surveillance balloon, […]
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WASHINGTON — The Chinese spy balloon shot down by the U.S. military over the Atlantic Ocean was capable of collecting communications signals and was part of a fleet of surveillance balloons directed by the Chinese military that had flown over more than 40 countries across five continents, the State Department said Thursday. The United States […]
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Now, as some smaller states — particularly those the United States describes as allies and partners — confront this new potential threat of surveillance, their options may be limited. What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can […]
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The new State Department campaign to divulge details of China’s spy balloon program to other governments is aimed at making allies and partners aware of the extent of Chinese aerial espionage efforts so that they can push back on Beijing’s efforts, U.S. officials said. Wendy Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, briefed U.S. diplomats abroad […]
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Just a few days ago, the United States was in a national tizzy about a balloon. Never mind that China poses a more significant security risk through TikTok, potentially spying on us while floating inside our phones, and that the United States probably will garner more intelligence from the balloon than it did on us. […]
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WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said on Tuesday that China had rejected a request from Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to speak with his Chinese counterpart on Saturday soon after an American fighter jet shot down a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina. As the debris was settling into the Atlantic and […]
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On Chinese social media, jokes about the suspected spy balloon have been making the rounds. People quipped that the vessel was a misunderstood attempt at wishing Americans a happy Lantern Festival, the Chinese holiday this past Sunday. Others compared it to a glutinous rice ball, a traditional food eaten during the celebrations. The wisecracking was, […]
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WASHINGTON — The top military commander overseeing North American airspace said Monday that some previous incursions by Chinese spy balloons during the Trump administration were not detected in real time, and the Pentagon learned of them only later. “I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, and that’s a domain awareness gap,” […]
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A Chinese balloon floated over Latin America and the Caribbean, the Chinese government confirmed on Monday, adding that it was for civilian purposes and was being used for flight tests. “Affected by the weather and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course and entered into the airspace of Latin America […]
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The Chinese balloon that bumbled its way across the United States has launched a thousand questions about its real intent. But it is also focusing the world’s attention on the prospect that the communications and control within Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government and his vaunted security apparatus may be less coherent — or even less […]
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