China’s ‘spy balloon’ shows Beijing is in a retaliatory mood amid US aggressiveness

The incident is just one recent example of Beijing testing Washington’s ‘guardrails’, with Xi also reportedly planning a trip to Moscow
After a number of affronts by the US, including a new chip embargo and a deal with the Philippines to access military bases near Taiwan, China is showing it is capable of turning tough

Terry Su

Published: 3:30am, 8 Feb 2023

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“Derelict Balloon Adrift” was NBC’s title for its “nightly news” report last Friday on the Pentagon’s announcement of an alleged Chinese spy balloon moving over the United States.

As a result of the incident, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off his much-anticipated trip to China just one day before his scheduled departure, claiming that “the presence of this surveillance balloon in US airspace is a clear violation of US sovereignty and international law ... The decision [by China] to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have.”

The drama ended the day after, when the “civilian airship” blown off course by force majeure, as China claimed, was shot down over the Atlantic by the US Air Force, drawing protests from the Chinese side.

As one might expect, ranking politicians such as Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy eagerly took to China bashing and partisanship, with the former accusing the Biden administration of “as usual ... [reacting] at first too indecisively and then too late” and having “let the People’s Republic of China make a mockery of our airspace”, and the latter stating “China’s brazen disregard for US sovereignty is a destabilising action that must be addressed”.

It seems pointless at this juncture to argue about whether we are in Cold War II, as historian Niall Ferguson foretold years ago; some are now even touting another Cuban Missile Crisis. Is it that serious?

Probably not, but the “guardrails” Washington has repeatedly called for in its confrontational relationship with Beijing are being more ominously tested. In fact, they have been for a while, culminating in this “balloon adrift” incident, despite an apparent thaw signalled by the countries’ leaders when they met in Bali last November.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken scrapped his much-anticipated Beijing trip, aimed at easing escalating tensions between the two global powers. Photo: TNS

Despite the hype surrounding the new weapons provided to Ukraine by America and its global allies, and the media reports of Russia’s faltering in Ukraine, the fact remains that the war there is a big wound festering in Europe – so much so that even the Rand Corporation in its newly released report calls for a ceasefire, arguing that a prolonged war puts America at a long-term disadvantage. It proposes a resolution in which Ukraine’s neutrality is guaranteed and Russia is relieved of sanctions against it in return for its accordance.

But as Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung disclosed last month, secret negotiations between Washington and Moscow, which allegedly involved allowing Russia to retain 20 per cent of the Ukrainian territory it had occupied, broke down. The report was, understandably, denied by the White House.

Amid the stalemate, however, Washington continues to tighten the screws on Beijing – most unscrupulously, in the eyes of the latter. A chip embargo against China was agreed with Japan and the Netherlands; access to four new military bases in parts of the Philippines nearest to Taiwan was agreed during Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s recent visit; and sanctions against Huawei escalated to an all-out embargo on chip sales to the Chinese tech giant.

On Taiwan, Beijing’s first “red line”, Kevin McCarthy recently said that China cannot tell him where and where not to go, meaning that he plans to visit Taiwan as House Speaker. But less noticed was a report by the Taiwanese media that a giant American supply warship sailed within 6.5km (4 miles) of the island’s coastal waters to shelter from a storm, from which the Chinese government and media have largely chosen to avert their eyes.

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China’s top diplomat urges US to ‘avoid misjudgment’ as Blinken trip postponed over balloon issue

Perhaps America still holds a condescending attitude towards China, despite all its rhetorical depiction of it as the most formidable contestant to date. Perhaps, in its eyes, China is far from matching the ferocious image of the former Soviet Union.

The balloon incident, however, put the hard side of China in the limelight; and there had been some developments anticipating it, indicating Beijing’s frustrated and retaliatory mood.

The US media has lately brought up the topic that Chinese entities are aiding, one way or another, Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, something Washington keeps warning sternly against. The Wall Street Journal over the weekend referred to its reviews of Russian customs data, which “show Chinese state-owned defence companies shipping navigation equipment, jamming technology and fighter-jet parts to sanctioned Russian government-owned defence companies”.

And, if the Russian media is to be believed, Chinese President Xi Jinping is planning to visit President Vladimir Putin in Moscow some time in the spring. That the Russians are craning their necks for his coming can be safely assumed, as Putin is in desperate need of a prestige booster.

All this, it seems, shows that China is turning tough on America in the face of what it deems as America’s over-the-top leaning, despite President Joe Biden’s repeated appeal to the need for “guardrails”.

China, Russia criticise US, Europe for trying to sow discord

Viewed thus, Beijing’s balloon message becomes relevantly clear: China has no reason not to concur on the need for “guardrails” and maintain its strategic forbearance as far as possible in its relations with America; but, if Washington’s aggressiveness goes beyond its “red lines” regardless, it probably won’t react by the playbook America dictated to the Russians in Ukraine. Instead, it may go straight to the heartland of its rival, as the balloon adrift across continental America implies.

Judging by this, I’d say Blinken will still make his maiden visit to Beijing, and soon – or, in his own words, “when conditions allow”.

“There is no alternative to peace”; former US president Dwight Eisenhower’s famous assertion, when he emphasised the singular importance of coexistence between America and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, is as valid now as it was back then.

Terry Su is president of Lulu Derivation Data Ltd, a Hong Kong-based online publishing house and think tank specialising in geopolitics