Daniel DePetris

China won’t have gained much from its spy balloon

The Chinese spy balloon (Photo: Getty)

If you didn’t know any better, you might have thought China was preparing to unleash a large-scale invasion on the continental United States.

News of a Chinese surveillance balloon loitering over the picturesque landscape of Montana generated a wave of sensationalist coverage and panicked responses from lawmakers. We don’t know much about the balloon other than what the Pentagon has told us: the device, which was orbiting miles above the earth, made its way through Alaska’s Aleutian Islands into Canada before flying somewhere over Montana and drifting across the continental United States. On Friday, the Pentagon reported a second balloon flying somewhere over Latin America. And then this evening, according to AP, the balloon was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean, where the debris can be retrieved.

Espionage, while it sounds sexy in books and movies, is a very ordinary occurrence in international politics

The balloons didn’t threaten civilian air traffic, although the airport in Billings was shut down as a precaution as the Biden administration weighed what to do. As the balloon passed over the US, F-22 fighter jets were scrambled in case President Biden ordered a shoot-down, but concerns over the debris field led Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley to recommend holding fire.

All in all, the Chinese are unlikely to glean much information from the flight. Defence officials told reporters that the balloon wasn’t all that sophisticated, at least compared to other surveillance methods Beijing has already used. But this hasn’t stopped Washington from treating the incident as if it were the early murmurings of World War III.

Shortly after the news broke, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy tweeted that ‘China’s brazen disregard for US sovereignty is a destabilising action that must be addressed, and President Biden cannot be silent.’

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Written by
Daniel DePetris

Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune and a foreign affairs writer for Newsweek.

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