China’s Balloon Program Grew From a Humble Start, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 9, 2023.
By James T. Areddy and Brian Spegele
Effort that now alarms U.S. military developed in a blurry zone between science and national defense
Humble beginnings for Chinese high-altitude ballooning have given way to a modern program of towering, lighter-than-air data-vacuums that are now rattling the U.S. military establishment.
Parsing German and Japanese texts 40 years ago, Chinese scientists scratched calculations in notebooks and glued together scraps of newspaper to design a research balloon they hoped might fly to the edge of space.
Once a prototype was ready, the Chinese Academy of Sciences team chose to test it during the Mid-Autumn festival, when it is tradition to float lanterns skyward. Their craft, about the size of a small tourist hot-air balloon and equipped to detect a kind of cosmic high-energy particle, successfully disappeared into the stratosphere, according to a Xinhua News Agency article republished by the academy. The team dubbed it the “HAPI” to reflect the mood.
Beijing says its endeavors remain scientific. Washington and others saw broader ambitions in last week’s appearance of a big, white Chinese balloon toting equipment the size of three buses loitering in the Montana sky far above the cruising altitude of jetliners.
What the U.S. has described as one craft in a fleet of spy balloons with links to the People’s Liberation Army, China called an unmanned civilian airship used for “research, mainly meteorological, purposes” that had blown off course. It offered the same explanation when a similar balloon was then spotted over Latin America.
Beijing, which criticized as an overreaction the U.S. destruction of the balloon on Saturday, has pledged to safeguard the interests of a “company concerned” but has otherwise declined to answer questions about the provenance or missions of its balloons.
A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, who earlier this week said China has provided information about the balloon on several occasions, on Thursday accused the U.S. of information “warfare.”
High-altitude balloons float without identification beacons through near-space corridors of the sky, well above aircraft lanes that top out about 40,000 feet and far below low-orbit satellites which travel above 600,000 feet.
In a similar way, China’s high-altitude balloon program, like its space and polar research, appears to exist in a blurry zone between advanced science and national defense.
The U.S. expressed confidence Thursday that the maker of the balloon seen last week has a direct relationship with the PLA as an approved vendor, noting it advertises balloon products on its website along with videos of past flights.
China has credited a clutch of state-backed institutes and enterprises, including the government-run science academy in Beijing, for lifting the country’s capabilities in high-altitude ballooning, according to documents published to the entities’ websites, government reports and foreign industry analysts. The Wall Street Journal found one company that described the PLA as a customer on its website, while other entities cited military applications in their work.
The publicly available records show how various state enterprises have roles in ballooning, including a government research institute focused on satellites and optical imaging. And in the desolate grasslands of Inner Mongolia, an octagon-shaped slab of concrete marks what is thought to be a launch site for Chinese balloons, according to San Francisco-based satellite-imaging firm Planet Labs PBC, which provided The Wall Street Journal with the photo, and identified by Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif.
The science academy in China that did the early tests is now a leading balloon development center and in 2017 announced plans for a balloon flight base at Siziwang Banner, the area in the Planet Labs image. China’s space capsules return to Earth nearby, while Inner Mongolia is also associated with the nation’s satellite program, though rocket and spaceflight control stations are spread around the nation, from Hainan in the south to western Gansu.
The documentation on China’s balloon program points to a big motivation: American prowess in sophisticated ballooning.
The Chinese organizations routinely express envy at U.S. ballooning achievements, including by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas. From above, the Inner Mongolia launch site resembles NASA’s, according to Planet Labs.
NASA says its helium-filled, polyethylene balloons do high-altitude scientific and technological investigations that aren’t connected with the U.S. military. The Pentagon has declined to compare U.S. and Chinese capabilities.
NASA’s balloons are commonly 40 million cubic feet in size, or the equivalent of more than 195 Goodyear blimps—more than 20 times the estimated size of the Chinese craft spotted above the U.S.
How much China is spending on its balloon program isn’t known. Its rising attention to the industry has coincided with advances in surveillance capabilities and expansion of a nuclear arsenal that reflect leader Xi Jinping‘s stated determination to be a world power in technological and military strength.
The program is shrouded in secrecy. “China is very closed with the information they share of the balloon program,” says Luis E. Pacheco, editor of StratoCat, an Argentina-based database that tracks the sector. Before the recent hubbub in the U.S., StratoCat’s enthusiast users had filed photos of similar balloons in 2022 above the Indian Ocean, the Philippines and near Hawaii, Mr. Pacheco says.
It remains unknown who made China’s big white balloon.
A Hunan province company, Zhuzhou Rubber Research & Design Institute Co., describes itself as China’s largest manufacturer of meteorological balloons and says it specializes in producing the voluminous “envelopes” that, once filled with helium, give balloons their lift. Zhuzhou Rubber is ultimately controlled by state-owned Sinochem Group through a Shanghai-listed company, Haohua Chemical Science & Technology Co.
A Chinese government fund designed to ensure that new technologies benefit its armed forces has invested in Haohua, according to its stock-market filings. Zhuzhou Rubber has sometimes described itself as a supplier to the Joint Staff Department of the PLA, the arm responsible for strategy and combat readiness.
Haohua and Sinochem didn’t respond to questions about their balloon operations.
Balloons are also produced by aerospace behemoth Aviation Industry Corp. of China, or AVIC, which the U.S. officially calls a military end-user company, as well as China Electronics Technology Group Corp. 38th Research Institute, another entity targeted by U.S. sanctions.
Neither responded to questions.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences, which did the early high-altitude tests, remains involved in the sector through various branches, including its Aerospace Information Research Institute. The academy has shown on its website how a type of balloon secured to the ground, called an aerostat, could create “aerial wiring” for secure laser-based communication between China’s GPS-like Beidou satellite-navigation system, military drones and troop carriers. It last year claimed a height record for an aerostat that was equipped with a 16,404-foot-long tether attached to a 90-metric-ton base.
The academy also runs a balloon-vehicle research center as part of its satellite division, the Academy of Opto-Electronics. Optoelectronics focuses on light, including X-rays and fiber-optics for commercial use, and extends into military applications such as lasers, infrared sensors and imaging. A notice on the academy’s website says its balloon center, launched in 2005, cooperates with a subbranch of AVIC known as 605th Institute.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.
The China Aerospace Studies Institute, a U.S. Air Force think tank, says China’s military has used high-altitude balloons in drop tests of long-range missiles to simulate re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere. Separately, papers by Chinese scientists mentioning high-altitude balloons suggest military applications, including one this year that concluded laser communications have “broad development prospects in the fields of emergency communications and military operations.”
China’s foreign and defense ministries didn’t respond to questions about commercial-military fusion of ballooning by the government.
Military use of balloons has a long history.
Both sides in the American Civil War signaled strategy to soldiers from balloons. The F-22 Raptor that destroyed China’s balloon near the South Carolina coast used the code name Frank to honor a pilot who excelled in picking off German observation balloons in World War I. And during the Cold War, the Air Force installed cameras on balloons for a Soviet spy program called Project Genetrix.
Balloon research in China fell behind during its decadelong Cultural Revolution that lasted until 1976. The revival, which included the successful “HAPI” flight in 1983, is credited to a no-nonsense female nuclear expert named He Zehui who wanted more advanced ways of detecting cosmic particles than mountaintop treks that caused some researchers to vomit blood, according to a science academy tribute to Ms. He.
Mr. Pacheco estimates the Chinese balloon that traversed the U.S. was around 1.8 million cubic feet in size, making it around 16 times as large as a tourist balloon, while a fraction the size of NASA craft. Unusually, it appeared to have a smooth shape rather than the pumpkin contours of most modern balloons, according to enthusiasts.
“We certainly came into office aware that the Chinese were continuing this program of spy balloons and they were trying to improve this military capability,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters this week. “We continue to try to improve our own understanding of that capability and Chinese intentions.”