The Biden administration has signaled it is considering retaliating for the balloon overflight, including by sanctioning the manufacturer. A senior US State Department official told US media on Thursday that the US government is sure the balloon's maker “has a direct relationship with China’s military and is an approved vendor of the PLA [People’s Liberation Army], according to information published in an official procurement portal for the PLA.”
Washington has also sanctioned numerous other Chinese firms with purported connections to the PLA or the Communist Party of China, sometimes with devastating effect. As a result, Chinese manufacturers of high-altitude balloons have begun issuing statements denying the balloon was theirs.
The Zhuzhou Rubber Research & Design Institute Co, a part of China National Chemical Corporation, said in statement on Wednesday that the balloon “is not related to our company.” Guangzhou Double-One Weather Equipment Company, another smaller balloon maker, also told Western media that while the company was capable of making a balloon that could undertake a similar flight over the US, it did not make the one that was shot down.
Zhuzhou Rubber is well-known for making high-performance, high-flying weather balloons, and correspondingly dominates China’s market share, exporting to more than 40 countries. Zhuzhou also supplies the China Meteorological Administration, which is a department of the PLA, with its sounding balloons used to accurately measure weather patterns at different heights.
According to a report in Chinese media, Zhuzhou’s latex balloons are made using an improved formula that helps the balloon survive longer at high altitudes near 164,000 feet up, where ultraviolet radiation from the sun can quickly degrade its ability to hold shape. After a while, balloons at such heights will inevitably pop due to this degradation, but some made by Zhuzhou can stay aloft for several hours.
However, the balloon that drifted over Canada and the United States recently was aloft for more than a week. Indeed, according to US media reports, the balloon exceeded all capabilities of latex balloons. Although that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been a weather balloon, as Beijing has claimed.
According to reports, the Chinese balloon was made out of plastic and resembled balloons made for the US space agency NASA by US company Raven Aerostar, which during the Chinese balloon’s transit of the US had one of its own balloons over Memphis, Tennessee, mistaken for the Chinese balloon.
Raven Aerostar’s balloons are used by NASA as well as space-related firms for stratospheric research, but also by Google to provide internet access to rural areas.
China’s other balloon makers have not yet issued statements or responded to media requests about their products.