Report: Chinese Spy Balloon Was Equipped with American Technology

A new report claims that the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down after floating across much of the United States had been equipped with technology manufactured by five different American companies.

According to Fox News, the report from Newsweek cited two anonymous sources who claimed to be familiar with a technical analysis conducted on the balloon’s remains by the United States military. When asked, the FBI declined to comment on the matter.

The balloon was spotted flying across the continental United States in early 2023, starting in Alaska and making its way across the northern U.S., before flying over the East Coast and being shot down off the coast of South Carolina. The Biden Administration had been heavily criticized for its initial refusal to address the threat of the balloon, and was widely perceived as slow to react.

The Chinese government alleged that the device was simply a weather balloon, though a study of the remains determined that it did indeed contain surveillance equipment. The balloon was destroyed before it could transmit any information back to Beijing.

The presence of American-made equipment is most likely due to American companies selling technology to foreign customers, including the Chinese government, thus raising concerns about how there is minimal enforcement of such foreign transactions.

One of the devices found in the balloon was an Iridium 9602, a messaging module designed for short burst messages, which was created by a Virginia-based company of the same name. Following the revelation, Iridium’s executive director for communications, Jordan Hassim, admitted that the company’s technology was “being used in ways they shouldn’t be.”

“There’s no way for us to know what the use is of a specific module,” Hassim noted. “We need to know the module specifically. For us, it could be a whale wearing a tag tracking it, it could be a polar bear, an explorer hiking a mountain.”

Newsweek reported that the other four American companies with technology implicated in the balloon fiasco were Amphenol All Sensors Corp, Omega Engineering, Onsemi, and Texas Instruments.