On December 22, 2022, a video was posted to the Chinese Haokan video platform in which an unnamed Chinese academic presented as an associate professor of transportation engineering and a special researcher at Huaqiao University said that China has been developing high-altitude blimp-based reconnaissance and surveillance systems for “a long time.” He said that the 30,000-meter flight ceiling of unmanned reconnaissance airships protects them from modern air defense systems, that they can serve as a highly effective “eye in the sky,” and that they can be particularly useful in detecting stealth aircraft, which are most easily detected from above.
He also said that China deployed its first “near-space” airship, the Yuan Meng as early as 2015, and that China’s airship technology is no less sophisticated than that of the U.S. In addition, he said that China’s fleet of airships includes the AS-700 manned airship and the Golden Eagle unmanned airship. Moreover, he said that it is possible that Chinese intelligence blimps have served a role in helping China detect American incursions into the South China Sea, and that in 2019 U.S. satellites photographed unmanned Chinese airships in that region.
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