Surveillance operations have indeed been carried out by China on Canadian territory, according to Ottawa. Not through balloons… but by buoys. Daniel Le Bouthillier, spokesman for the Canadian Ministry of Defence, confirmed on Wednesday February 22 information from the Globe and Mail published the day before that the Canadian armed forces “found and recovered Chinese surveillance buoys in the Arctic last fall”. This was all done as part of a mission to “ensure early detection of threats to Canada’s security” in Canada’s air, sea, land and aerospace domains.
Declining to say more about the mission for operational reasons, Daniel Le Bouthillier added that the country’s military authorities “are fully aware of China’s recent efforts to conduct surveillance operations in Canadian airspace and maritime approaches using dual-use technologies”.
At this stage, it is not yet known if the buoys drifted into Canadian waters after being deployed in the Arctic Ocean or if they were deliberately anchored to the seabed in Canadian territory. It is also unknown what measuring instruments were used in the Chinese buoys. According to Adam Lajeunesse, assistant professor at Saint-Francis-Xavier University, interviewed by Radio Canada, it is a kind of scientific device with potential dual-use capability. This one was probably dropped by one of the two Chinese icebreakers, those ships that China used to circumnavigate the Arctic.
Adam Lajeunesse explained that such buoys could be used to map the seabed and to monitor salinity levels as well as ice thickness. According to this Canadian Arctic maritime security specialist, scientific work must be done before deploying nuclear submarines in the Arctic. Another fear raised by Adam Lajeunesse: the fact that these buoys could follow American submarines.
On his side, as spotted The International Courierretired Lt. Gen. Michael Day said At Globe and Mail that, according to him, Beijing is also interested in trying to exploit the large resource deposits of the Arctic seabed, in addition to keeping an eye on Canadian and American military activities.
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told CNN on Wednesday that her government will “take a firm stance on Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic.” “We will challenge China when needed and we will cooperate with China when needed,” she added. as reported by Radio Canada. She also accused Beijing of being “an increasingly disruptive power”. “Regarding Arctic-related issues within our maritime borders or any form of foreign interference, we are going to be clear,” she warned.
“We will build a new northern approaches surveillance system to replace the North Warning System,” Defense Minister Anita Anand said, referring to Canadian-American radar stations in the Arctic. It will be replaced by an over-the-horizon radar system, “capable of detecting threats further and further north”, she said. on the CTV News website.
Beijing was quick to respond, as noted International mail. Chinese official gazette GlobalTimes accused Ottawa of following “Washington’s China policy so closely that it fell into a Cold War frenzy of thought”. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Canada on Thursday refuted China’s allegation of interference in Canada’s internal affairs, calling it “pure defamation and slander” and expressing “strong dissatisfaction and strong opposition”.
The revelation comes on the heels of the US decision to shoot down what was confirmed to be a high-flying Chinese balloon in early February. The Chinese government denied it was a spy device, arguing instead that the object was in fact a weather device. Three other high-flying objects were shot down over North America in the days that followed.
On February 17, Canadian police announced that they had ended the search for the flying object shot down nearly a week ago in the Arctic province of Yukon. After searching the “most likely search area where the object would have fallen”, the authorities were unable to locate the debris, in particular because of difficult weather conditions.
On the same day, the United States also announced that it had terminated the search for two other downed aircraft, one off the north coast of Alaska on February 10, the other over Lake Huron, the border with Canada two days later. Conducted in cooperation with the Canadian authorities, this research, which mobilized sophisticated technologies, remained unsuccessful, it was specified in a press release.
