Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he wasn’t aware of the Chinese spy balloon programme until now.
“I don’t recall a balloon discussion,” he told ABC’s RN Breakfast on Tuesday, “This is new to me as it is to most people.”
He added this revelation is concerning and that it’s “puzzling” that the balloons have gone undetected despite their enormous size.
“So these are big things, and it is bizarre that if they had been, in fact, flying around the world, they haven’t been picked up and noticed and brought down before.”
The comment comes days after the United States shot down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4. Another three more unidentified flying objects, two in U.S. airspace and one in Canadian airspace. were also shot down.
U.S. officials said the balloon is capable of monitoring communications signals and was “clearly” for intelligence surveillance.
“China has a high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that’s connected to the People’s Liberation Army,” National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said at a Feb. 13 press conference.
Australia Removed Chinese Cameras In Government Sites
Following the revelation about the spy balloon, Australia has ordered the removal of all Chinese-made surveillance cameras from the country’s government sites “as soon as possible,” in the latest Western move to combat the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s overseas technology.Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles announced the order on Feb. 9, following an audit that revealed that almost 1000 Chinese-made surveillance cameras were installed across over 250 sites of Commonwealth departments and agencies, including foreign affairs and defence sites.
“It’s a significant thing that’s been brought to our attention, and we’re going to fix it. It’s obviously been there … for some time and predates us coming into office,” Marles said.
The move comes after an audit released by Shadow Minister for Cyber Security & Countering Foreign Interference James Paterson found that the Chinese-made cameras and security equipment were found in almost every department except Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Agriculture Department.
Australia Accelerates Submarines Acquisition
Meanwhile, as the US-China security competition intensifies, Australia is continuing to strengthen its relationship with the U.S. through the AUKUS pact and its acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines.“We already do have a close relationship, a very close relationship, intensely close, in fact, intimate with the UK and the US,” Turnbull said. “I mean, we have no closer allied than the United States.”
“Our relationship with the UK is close and intimate. They’re not really a presence in the Asia Pacific, which haven’t been for many decades. But nonetheless, the technological and signals intelligence relationship is close. So that’s all good.”
However, he noted there is more work to be done on the submarines as there remain barriers in terms of importing American technology as well as exporting Australian technology to the US
“The real question is not whether there’s an Australian commander [of the submarines], but whether they could be operated by Australia,” he said.
“If United States support and supervision were withdrawn, would we be able to operate them autonomously in the sense that if the American said, ‘We don’t want you to do go on that mission,’ we could nonetheless go.”
