When it comes to the Chinese balloons appearing in American skies, whether they’re meteorological or more menacing in their vital nature, it rather appears to depend on what you want to see as to what anyone wants to see. The liberals – and maybe the American military – sees it as a mistake that happens from time to time:
The top U.S. general responsible for protecting North American skies said Monday that past incursions by Chinese balloons went undetected by the Pentagon, exposing what he characterized as a worrisome deficiency that must be addressed.
The Defense Department has acknowledged that the craft shot down Saturday off the South Carolina coast after a days-long journey across the U.S. mainland marked at least the fifth time in recent years that Beijing has breached the nation’s airspace using such technology. Officials informed lawmakers over the weekend that, dating back to Donald Trump’s presidency, there had been similar breaches near Texas, Florida, Hawaii and Guam. [WaPo]
Erick Erickson doesn’t buy it – but, then, he’s followed right-wing instructions most of the time over the years I’ve read his public blog, and this seems to be a classic example:
The larger issue of the Chinese balloon is a test to see how we would respond. We failed the test. We could have taken action over the Pacific as it wandered into Alaska. We could have taken action as it wandered into very rural northern Idaho and Montana, where the loss of lives would be virtually non-existent. Instead, we waited until it traversed the whole United States, floated over the Atlantic, then shot it down.
Biden ordered the shootdown on Wednesday. It happened on Saturday.
In the run-up to the shootdown, several defense sources said these balloons also happened in prior years, predating Biden. Also, several made clear that they were not sure what was actually on the balloon, so it was better to wait for the ocean in case there were biological or radiological issues, particularly with power. But considering the solar panels, that seems to be excuse-making. And, with a seven-mile debris field possible, the damage of impact on the land would not have been much different.
Culminating in …
That Joe Biden’s gut still tells him to go with the advisors who keep leading him astray is a problem with Joe Biden, not with his advisors. He looks weak.
Erickson’s problems? You mean, besides the report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics that the US blew by professional estimates for employment gains … “Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 517,000 in January, and the unemployment rate changed little at 3.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.“?[1]
Yeah, this analysis from CNN:
As the new year got underway in China, hopes appeared to be running high that an easing of tensions with the United States could unfold in the months ahead.
China’s Foreign Ministry expressed as much late last month when it said China would “welcome” a visit from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – an expected visit that analysts say Beijing viewed as an opportunity to help strengthen its economy and repair fraught diplomatic ties.
So when a high-altitude balloon from China carrying a payload the size of three coach buses equipped with what American officials have described as surveillance equipment was spotted over the continental US, visibly hovering above a state with key military assets and ultimately sparking an international incident – it naturally raised critical questions about just what had happened, and why.
China maintains the vessel, which was shot down by the US over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, was a weather balloon thrown off course. And it has shown signs of both being caught off guard by the incident and wanting to stem the potential damage, analysts say, not only framing the situation as the result of factors beyond its control, but also offering a rare expression of “regret” over it in a statement Friday.
Indeed, if China’s government is having internal problems stemming from its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and exacerbated by its inferior CoronaVac vaccine and a national pride that prevented its use of Western-developed vaccines, then this analysis makes a great deal of sense. Needing to cool a heated relationship that might otherwise result in sanctions could easily be at the top of Chinese priorities – at least for top leader President Xi Jinping. Autocracies are stable right up until they fly apart, and so for all I know Xi is trying very hard to hold together China, and doesn’t need the USA making things worse.
But his rivals might risk it. Just like this.
Finally, Professor Richardson, a professional historian and a liberal, has a bit of scorn to serve up:
It’s Saturday night, so I will be a bit snarky: [right wing critics] need to get a grip. A key aspect of any country’s national security is spying, and of course China and the U.S. are spying on each other. Shooting the balloon down as soon as it was spotted would have endangered Americans and made learning anything from it more difficult.
That being said, it’s not at all clear to me what this balloon was designed to accomplish politically. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his planned visit to Beijing over it, giving the U.S. a reason to back out of a visit that certainly seemed likely to bolster President Xi Jinping’s government. Scholar of international relations Daniel Drezner notes in his Drezner’s World it appears to have been a screw-up at a level below that of President Xi. China has been trying to cool tensions with America, not heat them up.
That being said, the visible spy balloon predictably sparked Republican attacks on President Biden, so the incident has the potential to weaken the administration’s strong steps to counter the growing power of China.
For those who think the balloons are of a sinister nature, it’s worth noting that analysis of their remains will yield useful information for the USA, and monitoring their communications prior to their elimination may yield even more information. The Chinese had to know that, eventually, they’d be detected and knocked down, so why would they send high value surveillance technology into American airspace. Out of context, that is a puzzle.
So what’s the context? These balloons are flying at around 60,000 ft and moving fast. They may actually be above the North American jet stream, or they may spend time in it. And here’s the final piece that I’ve yet to see mentioned anywhere:
What if this really is an accident brought on by weather that’s slowly becoming more and more extreme?
Yes, all this squalling could be the result of climate change. Sure, right-wingers like Erickson will squawk and laugh and ignore such an idea because it doesn’t fit with their tenets of how reality works, but I think it’s worth considering in all this learned analysis. Accidents do happen, and that’s what we may be seeing here.
1 Naturally, one should not trust the first cut numbers of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, given its history of issuing revisions. Still, half a million new jobs is a bit of a gob smack when the projection was short of 200,000 jobs, enough so that I wonder if someone screwed up the count. And … it certainly weakens Erickson’s sniping at Biden’s advisors, doesn’t it?
