Xi Jinping’s surveillance programme has “proven that the US Government’s warnings” about heightened monitoring were correct, a former US intelligence community contractor claimed. Karim Hijazi told Express.co.uk China will now likely struggle to win over the trust of potential investors and to expand its tech presence across the world. Hijazi noted the suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down in the US last week was a “bad move” for Beijing as it created bipartisan support for increasing restrictions on Chinese business investment in North America.
He said: “The Chinese are usually very strategic in their operations and planning. In their foreign policy, they used to plan decades in advance.
“This, however, is extremely short-sighted thinking and it doesn’t compute with the China I’ve come to know.
“They’ve accomplished very little with this flight, but they’ve lost a lot. They’ve helped to unite the US against them.
“They’ve just proven that the US government’s warnings about China’s expansive espionage efforts, specifically in widely distributed technologies and platforms – like 5G, smart devices, TikTok, etc. – are justified, which will boost US efforts to ban Chinese technologies at home and to get America’s allies on board with this as well.”
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Hijazi suggested the spy balloon could represent an “expansion of their surveillance operations” but insisted the decision to monitor the US so closely was risky and the benefits to the Chinese intelligence community minimal.
The expert argued China is known to have alternative and more reliable technology to conduct surveillance operations, suggesting Beijing might have opted for a balloon alternative to instead collect data on electronic communications.
He said: “I highly doubt this was an accident, particularly since the balloon was both manoeuvrable and operational and we now know this isn’t the first time they have done this.
“This is clearly an expansion of their surveillance operations, but it’s a strange decision on their part because this type of action clearly violates a country’s sovereignty and is unnecessarily provocative and risky.
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“The Chinese have spy satellites that are more than sufficient for the type of surveillance this balloon was carrying out.
“The only difference would be if the balloon was being used for signals intelligence, such as capturing/monitoring electronic communications, but a high-altitude balloon is not the most efficient means of accomplishing that. I’m not even sure if it could do that.”
Beijing has maintained the balloon shot down miles off the US east coast on February 4 was a civilian aircraft and accused Washington of “escalating” the incident.
Last week, Congress passes a unanimous motion condemning China for its “brazen violation of United States sovereignty.”
But on Monday, China claimed that 10 US high-altitude balloons flew in its airspace during the past year without its permission. Washington has denied that it operates any surveillance balloons over China.
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Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin gave no details about the alleged US balloons, how they had been dealt with or whether they had government or military links.
Wang said: “It is also common for US balloons to illegally enter the airspace of other countries.
“Since last year, U.S. high-altitude balloons have illegally flown over China’s airspace more than 10 times without the approval of Chinese authorities.”
National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson quickly rejected the allegations, saying Beijing had instead conducted surveillance operations violating the sovereignty of the United States and at least 40 other nations.
Watson said: “It is China that has a high-altitude surveillance balloon program for intelligence collection, connected to the People’s Liberation Army, that it has used to violate the sovereignty of the United States and over 40 countries across five continents.”
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