More Details About China's High-Altitude Balloon Campaign Revealed

This picture taken on September 7, 2023, shows meteorologist Laurent Moullet launching a weather balloon measuring the zero degree isotherm at MeteoSwiss station in Payerne, western Switzerland. Since December 2023, Taiwan says it has detected dozens of suspected weather balloons launched from China and crossing the Taiwan Strait—some into its airspace.

Taiwan offered more details this week about nearly 100 Chinese balloons it has detected in its surrounding airspace since December, an alleged strategy of harassment linked to China’s government.

The Taiwanese Defense Ministry, however, is refusing to draw a direct link between the suspected weather balloons and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. It denied on Sunday that they were being launched from PLA Navy warships nearby. The Chinese Defense Ministry could not be reached for comment, and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.

Taipei has described the 10-week campaign of balloon launches—all released from the Chinese coast into the Taiwan Strait—as a form of psychological warfare by its powerful neighbor China, which claims the island as part of its territory. The Taiwanese government has so far resisted calls to shoot down the objects, saying that a forceful response would play into Beijing’s hands.

A report on Saturday by Taiwan’s Chinese-language China Times newspaper quoted an unnamed local defense official. They said that the majority of the balloons were launched from China’s shores, but several were also detected leaving the decks of passing PLA naval vessels.

The Chinese military’s intent, the newspaper said, was to harass Taiwan’s air defenses with the balloons, which have increased in number, alongside the PLA’s daily aircraft and naval vessel operations around the island.

In its response, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, which previously said the devices mostly originated from the Chinese coastal provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, said it was monitoring every balloon that enters its surrounding airspace. The ministry reports its findings to the government’s Civil Aviation Administration to ensure aircraft safety.

“Any enemy threat that endangers national security will be assessed and handled appropriately,” said the ministry’s statement carried by the official Military News Agency.

Newsweek’s analysis of the ministry’s data showed Taipei tracked the paths of 87 balloons between December 7 and February 17. In that period, at least 25 balloons entered Taiwan’s airspace and flew over the island.

Defense analysts have described it as a pressure tactic to undermine Taipei’s control of its territory, especially around sensitive military sites. Detections surged in mid-January after Taiwan’s presidential election, culminating in alarming territorial overflights on February 9 and 10, when China launched eight balloons on each day.

Taiwan continues to assess that the balloons are weather-monitoring devices. And while it has linked their appearance to the Chinese government, Taipei has not publicly speculated on any political purpose they might serve.

Beijing’s only official acknowledgement of the balloons thus far came from its Taiwan Affairs Office in late January. Its spokesperson, Chen Binhua, said the devices were launched by private companies for meteorological monitoring and therefore were “nothing new.”

Chan Chih-hung, a spokesperson for Taiwan’s China policy-making Mainland Affairs Council, said this month that Chen’s explanation was “hard to believe” because of the number, intensify and flight paths of the balloons.

Chan said that a private organization would lack the financial means to sustain such a campaign.

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