The Pentagon on Thursday said that the US is tracking a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon for a couple of days in possible surveillance of sensitive nuclear weapons sites in the country.
One of the places the balloon was spotted was Montana, which is home to one of the nation’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
Fighter jets were mobilised but military leaders advised President Joe Biden against shooting the balloon out of the sky for fear debris could pose a safety threat, advice Biden accepted.
This isn’t the first time a spy that a spy balloon has been spotted in America. Spy balloons have flown over the United States several times in recent years, but this balloon appeared to be lingering longer than in previous instances, an official said.
As the discovery of the balloon put further strain on US-China relations amid heightened tensions, News18 looks at some of the previous instances of Chinese espionage on the American soil.
Chinese Police Station in the US
In December last year, Chinese police stations operating across the US made headlines. FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers in November 2022 that the US is deeply concerned about the Chinese government setting up unauthorized ‘police stations’ in US.
Once such ‘police station’ in New York was raided by the FBI earlier in January and its chief was also questioned.
Reports by several news agencies indicate that there are 100 such overseas police stations across the globe including in Japan, Italy, France, Britain, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and other nations to monitor, harass and in some cases repatriate Chinese citizens living in exile.
China hackers compromised US State Govt networks
A Chinese state-sponsored hacking group successfully compromised the computer networks of at least six US state governments between May 2021 and February 2022, according to cybersecurity firm Mandiant.
The group, known as APT41, allegedly exploited vulnerabilities in web applications to get their initial foothold into state government networks.
APT41, which carries out state-sponsored espionage on behalf of Beijing, took advantage of software flaws and quickly exploited security vulnerabilities that were made public by researchers, Mandiant added.
Chinese Spy
A Chinese intelligence officer was sentenced to 20 years in prison in November last year after he was convicted in 2021 of plotting to steal trade secrets from US and French aviation and aerospace companies.
Xu Yanjun was accused of a lead role in a five-year Chinese state-backed scheme to steal commercial secrets from GE Aviation, one of the world’s leading aircraft engine manufacturers and France’s Safran Group.
US officials have said the Chinese government poses the biggest long-term threat to US economic and national security and it is also carrying out efforts to steal critical technology from US businesses and researchers.
Earlier in October 2022, US prosecutors charged thirteen Chinese agents for conducting illegal operations in the US. While only two of the suspects were in custody, the remaining eleven remained free to continue their espionage and intimidation operations against American victims from China.
Innumerable attempts
There have been 160 publicly reported instances of Chinese espionage directed at the United States since 2000, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The list, derived only from open-source material, reveals only the tip of the iceberg. It states that 42% of actors were Chinese military or government employees, 32% were private Chinese citizens, while 26% were non-Chinese actors.
According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Chinese spying in the US is so widespread that the FBI is launching an average of two counterintelligence investigations a day. Wray said the FBI is opening a new China related counter-intelligence investigation on average every 12 hours, with over 2,000 such cases currently underway, according to NBC news.
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