It’s not party time for US and China after balloon blast

10 February 2023 12:01 am 1 Bookmark

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This picture provided by the US Navy shows sailors recovering parts of the Chinese balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in the Atlantic Ocean on Feb 5, 2023. AFP

To pop up a balloon, all that is required is a sewing pin or a needle or a backward jump to land on it on your butt. But after sitting on it for days, the United States used fighter jets to blast it. Perhaps, the Pentagon found that all the pins on sale in US shops or supermarkets were made-in-China. So it did not want to touch them, for it thought everything from China is a spying gadget.

Haphazardly loaded lame jokes apart, the balloon we are talking about is not an ordinary party balloon. It was 200 feet tall and had the weight of an airliner. It was in North American airspace from January 28 to February 4. It flew over Alaska and western Canada before it was spotted in the US airspace and caused a major diplomatic row. The Americans said it was a spy balloon, but China claimed it was a meteorological research airship that went astray.
The US, after mulling it over several days, not knowing what the balloon’s cargo or payload contained, used its fighter jets to shoot it down on February 4 over the US territorial waters off South Carolina on the orders of President Joe Biden.

The present US strategic culture is to think that most things China makes are spy gadgets. The US has declared that hi-tech communications gadgets from China’s tech giant Huawei pose a national security threat for the countries that use them. In the wake of the balloon incident, calls grew in the US to shut down the widely popular TikTok short video platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. “A big Chinese balloon in the sky and millions of Chinese TikTok balloons on our phones. Let’s shut them all down,” US Senator Mitt Romney said on Twitter. “Now blow up TikTok,” tweeted Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.

There is no question about big balloons’ importance in intelligence gathering and warfare. During the final stages of World War II, Japan developed military balloons which carried incendiary and antipersonnel weapons. It is said that during the war, Japan used some 9,300 of these unmanned balloons, some of which crossed the Pacific Ocean and reached the United States.

These balloons prompted US military scientists to develop their own balloons. The result was the E77, whose design was based on Japan’s Fu-Go balloon bomb. During test runs in 1950, the US military researchers, with approval from the US Army’s chemical corps, used feathers as a vector to disseminate anti-crop agents carried by the balloon.
However, the US never used these balloons in warfare, as it had developed better airborne vehicles by then. In the 1960s, the Vietnam War saw the US military using C-123 aircraft to spread the toxic herbicide – Agent Orange – as part of its chemical warfare aimed at defoliating the forests where the resistance forces had their bases.
Against this backdrop, it was no surprise that the US government took more time to carry out a studied and cautious approach to shooting down the Chinese balloon. Whatever debris the US military has collected has been sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory at Quantico in Virginia, for analysis.

The incident has added a major strain to US-China relations, with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponing his visit to Beijing, while President Biden in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night roared that he would protect America against Chinese threats to its sovereignty.
Upping the ante, Biden reprimanded China’s President Xi Jinping, saying Washington sought “competition, not conflict.” “Make no mistake: as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did,” Biden said.
China has described the controversy as much ado about nothing.

An opinion piece published in yesterday’s edition of China’s Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times said: “It is not only a joke but also a political trick. In Washington, the atmosphere is like facing a formidable enemy, but the opponent is just a “balloon.” The US has obviously overreacted, as some politicians believe ramping up anti-China hysteria can help them gain a political advantage.”
When mutual suspicion between nations defines international relations, spying is an essential part of statecraft. The balloon saga is somewhat similar to the U-2 spy plane incident decades ago.

Happening some 15 years after the end of the Second World War, the U-2 incident brought the world to the brink of another major war between the US-led western bloc and the Soviet Union-led eastern bloc. The culprit then was the US, which was in the habit of sending high-altitude spy planes over Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and even China, confident that no missile could touch the planes flying at a height of 70,000 feet.
But on May 1, 1960, while on a reconnaissance mission deep inside the Soviet Union, the Lockheed U-2 spy plane was downed by a Soviet missile. The pilot who ejected himself was arrested and sentenced to ten-year imprisonment. He was released two years later under a prisoner exchange programme. But the incident intensified the Cold War to create the 1962 Cuban missile crisis that almost triggered the world’s first nuclear war.

The US was also caught with its pants down in another high-profile spy incident. In April 2001, during the early months of the presidency of George W. Bush the hawk, a US Navy spy aircraft on a surveillance mission close to China’s military bases collided with a Chinese aircraft that pursued it, killing the Chinese pilot. But a second Chinese J-8 fighter jet guided the damaged US plane with its 24-member crew to make an emergency landing in China’s Hainan airbase.
In December 2016, China seized an underwater US drone. The unmanned underwater vehicle was later handed back to the US, of course, after inspection.
The US-China diplomatic spat over the balloon affair comes amidst US moves to reinforce its military presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

On the very day of the sighting of China’s balloon over US skies, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was in the Philippines to get assurance from the Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr that the US would be given access to four more locations under the 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). In total, the US will now have access to nine military bases in the Philippines.
These military bases together with US military bases in strategic locations in Asia well and truly surround China, making it a state under a virtual siege.
Needless to say, in the absence of détente between the two nations, the balloon affair won’t be the last of its kind.

<img src="https://bmkltsly13vb.compat.objectstorage.ap-singapore-1.oraclecloud.com/cdn.sg.dailymirror.lk/assets/uploads/image_57e6988fb4.jpg" style="width: 900px; height: 559px;" /> This picture provided by the US Navy shows sailors recovering parts of the Chinese balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in the Atlantic Ocean on Feb 5, 2023. AFP  <center><a href="https://www.hi.lk/himag" target="_blank"><img src="https://bmkltsly13vb.compat.objectstorage.ap-singapore-1.oraclecloud.com/cdn.sg.dailymirror.lk/assets/uploads/advr_7fec3b236e.jpg" /></a></center> To pop up a balloon, all that is required is a sewing pin or a needle or a backward jump to land on it on your butt. But after sitting on it for days, the United States used fighter jets to blast it.<img src="https://bmkltsly13vb.compat.objectstorage.ap-singapore-1.oraclecloud.com/cdn.sg.dailymirror.lk/assets/uploads/image_c9f16ee88c.jpg" style="border-width: 0px; border-style: solid; margin: 5px; float: right;" /> Perhaps, the Pentagon found that all the pins on sale in US shops or supermarkets were made-in-China. So it did not want to touch them, for it thought everything from China is a spying gadget. Haphazardly loaded lame jokes apart, the balloon we are talking about is not an ordinary party balloon. It was 200 feet tall and had the weight of an airliner. It was in North American airspace from January 28 to February 4. It flew over Alaska and western Canada before it was spotted in the US airspace and caused a major diplomatic row. The Americans said it was a spy balloon, but China claimed it was a meteorological research airship that went astray.  The US, after mulling it over several days, not knowing what the balloon’s cargo or payload contained, used its fighter jets to shoot it down on February 4 over the US territorial waters off South Carolina on the orders of President Joe Biden.  The present US strategic culture is to think that most things China makes are spy gadgets. The US has declared that hi-tech communications gadgets from China’s tech giant Huawei pose a national security threat for the countries that use them. In the wake of the balloon incident, calls grew in the US to shut down the widely popular TikTok short video platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. “A big Chinese balloon in the sky and millions of Chinese TikTok balloons on our phones. Let’s shut them all down,” US Senator Mitt Romney said on Twitter. “Now blow up TikTok,” tweeted Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida. There is no question about big balloons’ importance in intelligence gathering and warfare. During the final stages of World War II, Japan developed military balloons which carried incendiary and antipersonnel weapons. It is said that during the war, Japan used some 9,300 of these unmanned balloons, some of which crossed the Pacific Ocean and reached the United States.  These balloons prompted US military scientists to develop their own balloons. The result was the E77, whose design was based on Japan’s Fu-Go balloon bomb. During test runs in 1950, the US military researchers, with approval from the US Army’s chemical corps, used feathers as a vector to disseminate anti-crop agents carried by the balloon.  However, the US never used these balloons in warfare, as it had developed better airborne vehicles by then. In the 1960s, the Vietnam War saw the US military using C-123 aircraft to spread the toxic herbicide – Agent Orange – as part of its chemical warfare aimed at defoliating the forests where the resistance forces had their bases. Against this backdrop, it was no surprise that the US government took more time to carry out a studied and cautious approach to shooting down the Chinese balloon. Whatever debris the US military has collected has been sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory at Quantico in Virginia, for analysis.  The incident has added a major strain to US-China relations, with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponing his visit to Beijing, while President Biden in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night roared that he would protect America against Chinese threats to its sovereignty. Upping the ante, Biden reprimanded China’s President Xi Jinping, saying Washington sought “competition, not conflict.” “Make no mistake: as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did,” Biden said. China has described the controversy as much ado about nothing. An opinion piece published in yesterday’s edition of China’s Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times said: “It is not only a joke but also a political trick. In Washington, the atmosphere is like facing a formidable enemy, but the opponent is just a “balloon.” The US has obviously overreacted, as some politicians believe ramping up anti-China hysteria can help them gain a political advantage.”  When mutual suspicion between nations defines international relations, spying is an essential part of statecraft. The balloon saga is somewhat similar to the U-2 spy plane incident decades ago.  Happening some 15 years after the end of the Second World War, the U-2 incident brought the world to the brink of another major war between the US-led western bloc and the Soviet Union-led eastern bloc. The culprit then was the US, which was in the habit of sending high-altitude spy planes over Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and even China, confident that no missile could touch the planes flying at a height of 70,000 feet.  But on May 1, 1960, while on a reconnaissance mission deep inside the Soviet Union, the Lockheed U-2 spy plane was downed by a Soviet missile. The pilot who ejected himself was arrested and sentenced to ten-year imprisonment. He was released two years later under a prisoner exchange programme. But the incident intensified the Cold War to create the 1962 Cuban missile crisis that almost triggered the world’s first nuclear war.  The US was also caught with its pants down in another high-profile spy incident. In April 2001, during the early months of the presidency of George W. Bush the hawk, a US Navy spy aircraft on a surveillance mission close to China’s military bases collided with a Chinese aircraft that pursued it, killing the Chinese pilot. But a second Chinese J-8 fighter jet guided the damaged US plane with its 24-member crew to make an emergency landing in China’s Hainan airbase.  In December 2016, China seized an underwater US drone. The unmanned underwater vehicle was later handed back to the US, of course, after inspection. The US-China diplomatic spat over the balloon affair comes amidst US moves to reinforce its military presence in the Indo-Pacific region.  On the very day of the sighting of China’s balloon over US skies, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was in the Philippines to get assurance from the Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr that the US would be given access to four more locations under the 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). In total, the US will now have access to nine military bases in the Philippines.  These military bases together with US military bases in strategic locations in Asia well and truly surround China, making it a state under a virtual siege.  Needless to say, in the absence of détente between the two nations, the balloon affair won’t be the last of its kind.