US shooting of China balloon; a storm in a tea cup

Published: February 06,2023

By Gerald Mbanda

Source: internet: Marissa Nuemann

A Chinese civilian airship accidentally entered US airspace some days ago and China acknowledged that the balloon was a civilian vessel designed for meteorological research and its entry to the US was accidental. However, the US instead of verifying China’s statement, simply jumped at the conclusion that their perceived “number one enemy” has sent a balloon on a spying mission.  

This prompted the US to immediately call off a planned visit by US secretary of state Antony Blinken, followed by shooting down the balloon claiming that it had been flying over sensitive nuclear missile sites in the western state of Montana. On Friday, the Pentagon said that a second “Chinese spy balloon” had been detected over Latin America. 

The deviation of the Chinese metrological research balloon which was well explained as   caused by the Westerlies and its limited self-steering capability was not investigated by the US before using excessive force of shooting it down using excessive force of a jet fighter. “An F-22 Raptor fighter from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the balloon,” US sources said.    This was like killing a fly using a missile, and blowing the issue out of proportion by politicians and media was creating a storm in a tea cup. Diplomatic analysts believe that it was a lame excuse by the US to find reasons to escalate the frosty bilateral relations. 

Let us first look at the use of the terminology “spying balloon” by the US administration.  One of the definitions of spying according to the Cambridge dictionary is to secretly collect and report information about the activities of another country or organization. China’s intelligence would be naïve or not worth the profession to use a huge white floating balloon over US territory to “secretly” collect information. 

Whoever believes the spying allegation using a balloon deserves to be enrolled in the school of elementarylogic and reasoning. In fact, I would not be surprised in coming days to hear that there is new evidence that the balloon carried biological warfare materials as well. This is how the US operates on lies and deceptions. Secondly, before shooting down the balloon, there is no tangible evidence of what the “spying balloon” had gathered to qualify the name. This is an absolute misuse of the work “spying’ simply to smear China’s reputation.  

The US and China are the two largest economies in the world and are both super powers. Under normal circumstances they must work together to promote trade, investment and enjoy health diplomatic relations. They are expected to compete for global markets through a health competition rather than confrontation and smear campaign.  On a global stage, they need to work together to promote global governance, peace and security. It is therefore critical to restore mutual trust and bring back Sino-US relations to normalcy through continued dialogue and consultations. 

Much as the two countries should solve the accidental balloon issue, the world expects the US administration to resume planned confidence building bilateral engagements rather than cutting communication. It would serve US better for The US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to put back on schedule his planned visit to China.  

The author is a researcher and publisher on China and Africa.