The Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the United States last week “confirms a pattern of Chinese behavior” and shows that the United States needs to be aware of the constant risk of CCP intelligence, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.
Referencing the balloon—that was shot down by an F-22 fighter jet on Feb. 4—Stoltenberg said it confirms a pattern of Chinese behavior, “where we see that China over the last years has invested heavily in new military capabilities, including different types of surveillance and intelligence platforms.”
“And we’ve also seen increased Chinese intelligence activities in Europe—again, different platforms. They use satellites, they use cyber, and as we’ve seen over the United States, also balloons,” he said.
China Bolstering Military Forces, Nuclear Weapons
The NATO Secretary General also said that the balloon incident highlights that security is “not regional” but “global,” adding: “What happens in Asia matters for Europe, and what happens in Europe matters for Asia and also, of course, for North America.”He said he visited East Asian countries including Japan and South Korea last week, and that those nations had stressed the importance of strengthening cooperation with NATO and its partners in the Indo-Pacific to counter the “challenges” that China poses to “our values, and to our interests.”
Stoltenberg also pointed to China’s substantial bolstering of its military forces, including nuclear weapons “without any transparency,” and it’s deepening strategic partnership with Russia.
Biden Says China Spy Balloon ‘Not a Major Breach’
Meanwhile, officials in Beijing have claimed that the balloon was a civilian meteorological balloon that had been blown off course due to the weather and inadvertently flew over sensitive military sights.Despite the fact that the balloon traversed over the sensitive U.S. sites, and amid mounting criticism from Republican lawmakers over the government’s delayed response in bringing it down, President Joe Biden on Thursday said he has no regrets that it wasn’t bought down sooner, citing possible damage to people or structures in the area.
However, Biden appeared to downplay the incident.
“The total amount of intelligence gathering that’s going on with every country around the world is overwhelming. And the idea that a balloon could traverse … break American airspace is … anyway, it’s not a major breach,” Biden added.
The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard are still working on recovering parts of the spy balloon, which was shot down roughly six miles off the coast of South Carolina.