China, Many Nations Fly Spy Planes
April 5 -- China may be demanding that the United States stop flying surveillance aircraft off its coast, but it also flies planes performing similar missions, as do some two dozen other countries.
The United States has the world's largest and most capable force of spy planes — formally known as signals intelligence, or SIGINT aircraft — like the EP-3E Aries II plane being held by China. It flew SIGINT aircraft throughout the Cold War, and the Air Force, Navy and Army operate at least several dozen such aircraft designed for gathering the electronic communications and emissions of the militaries of potential foreign adversaries.
But China, too, is known to have a comparable, though much smaller and less advanced, capability, according to unclassified research on the subject. China's military is suspected of flying an unknown number of Russian-designed Antanov An-12 transport aircraft equipped with signals intelligence equipment, says Martin Streetly, editor of Jane's Electronic Mission Aircraft.
China is also believed to have equipped a number of other aircraft with SIGINT capabilities, including long range Tu-154Ms and PS-5s and HZ-5s, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies' [IISS] authoritative annual publication, The Military Balance. And China is believed to be mining the downed U.S. EP-3E for its advanced SIGINT technologies.
But that represents only a fraction of China's capability. China is also believed to have a large number of ground stations, ships and submarines, trucks, and limited satellite capabilities dedicated to SIGINT collection.
"China maintains by far the most extensive signals intelligence capabilities of all the countries in the Asia/Pacific region," Professor Desmond Ball of Australian National University wrote in a detailed article on the subject in 1995.
Growing Interest
Some two dozen countries worldwide fly similar aircraft, and the number of countries has been growing over the past decade. Most modern air forces have them and many developing nations fly the planes. In East Asia, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, possibly Russia, and Australia, as well as Chinese and U.S. forces, are believed to have them.
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