Between Sunday and Monday the Taiwanese army has detected six Chinese hot air balloons flying around and above the country, the highest number since the military began recording and making public data on such flights last December. It is not yet entirely clear what these balloons, which China flies at rather high altitudes (between 4,600 and 5,200 meters) above and around the island of Taiwan, are for: one of the main hypotheses is that they are an espionage tool. Others believe that the balloons are an attempt at intimidation of China towards Taiwan.
China has been using various means to monitor Taiwan’s airspace and intimidate its military and population for decades. Taiwan is a democratic and de facto independent country, which however China claims as part of its territory. For a very long time, for example, China has been sending jets around Taiwan as a means of pressure and intimidation. The use of hot air balloons, however, is relatively new, or at least has only recently been made public by Taiwan.
There was a lot of talk about Chinese hot air balloons about a year ago, at the beginning of February 2023, when the United States said it had identified a Chinese “spy balloon” over the state of Montana. The shooting down of the balloon caused a diplomatic crisis between the two countries that lasted for months.
A US jet pilot stands next to a suspected Chinese spy balloon in February 2023 (Department of Defense via AP)
The presence of Chinese balloons around Taiwan was made public less than two months ago. The Taiwanese army publishes daily detailed reports on Chinese military assets (jets, drones and ships, mainly) that trespass around the island, and starting from December 8 last year it also began to talk about the presence of balloons. Some Taiwanese sources they said but Wall Street Journal that the first balloons had already been identified a month earlier, in November 2023.
In that period, between November and December, Taiwan was in the midst of the presidential election campaign which took place on January 13, in which the candidate most critical of China won. The balloon flights were perceived as a way for the Chinese military to try to pressure the vote. Some of these balloons, moreover, did not just fly around Taiwan, but crossed the entire main island: given the way relations between Taiwan and China are set up, it is a rather significant provocation. Chinese balloon flights over Taiwan continued even after the elections.
A couple of weeks ago Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense had condemned the sending of Chinese hot air balloons claiming that with their uncontrolled and unreported trajectories they are a “serious threat” to civil aviation. He also called them “an attempt to use psychological warfare to damage the morale of our people.”
– Read also: History of the military use of hot air balloons