Hullabaloo over a balloon

Punctured: The remnants of the so-called ‘spy balloon’ drifting above the Atlantic Ocean after it was shot down on Feb 4 by a missile from a fighter jet whose contrail can seen below it. — CHAD FISH/AP

I WAS wringing my hands last week over the ruckus raised as a Chinese “spy balloon” drifted across the United States until it was shot down.

Western media has decried Chinese surveillance and condemned the infringement of US sovereignty. US politicians are baying for blood, with Republicans pressing the White House for answers to why a spy balloon was allowed into the country’s airspace and whether national security had been compromised.

On the surface, both sides displayed tough postures. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken aborted a long-planned visit to China. Chinese officials emphasised Beijing’s right to take retaliatory actions against the downing of its balloon.

Still, details of what truly transpired remain fuzzy. There are missing facts about the nature of information collected by the balloon and its purpose. Though pictures of recovered debris off the South Carolina coast have emerged, US agencies will need time to study the equipment and determine the severity of China’s infraction.

Even so, commentators from all sides seem all too ready to chalk up the incident as a damaging diplomatic crisis, puncturing prospects for a US-China rapprochement and killing dialogue.

Was the US in control?

Part of this “fiasco” narrative stems from the assumption that the United States was caught with its pants down, and with little manoeuvring room. Indeed, most commentators have framed the Americans’ decision as one shaped by domestic politics, where President Joe Biden’s hand was forced by an outraged public and hawkish Republicans.

But the timeline of events suggests the Biden administration had control of the situation throughout.

Knowledge of the blimp was proactively made public by Pentagon spokesman Brigadier-General Patrick Ryder on Feb 2 – a full five days after US intelligence first detected its entry through Alaska – and subsequent directions on military options and national security safeguards were dished out by Biden.

Chinese officials were also put on notice before the Pentagon went public, according to news reports. Blinken had summoned senior Chinese Embassy officials in Washington DC and warned of countervailing action to protect US citizens. That was three days before the airship was shot down, so the ball was in China’s court to respond.

And over the period that the blimp stayed in US skies, persistent news coverage informed by detailed Pentagon media briefings galvanised domestic support for US action. Revelations by the Pentagon of similar balloons criss-crossing five other continents also provoked discussions around the world on how governments should approach such challenges and sensitised other countries to the threat of surveillance.

This sequence of events does not sound like the ill-considered actions of a surprised superpower. In fact, it suggests the eventual downing of the balloon by a US F-22 fighter jet on Feb 4 was a carefully thought-out and calibrated decision taken only after diplomatic options were exhausted.

If so, then the three-day grace period, while publicly framed as needing to wait until the target steered clear of densely populated centres, was certainly convenient in giving the Chinese time to withdraw their blimp from US airspace and make amends.

Not likely a China fumbleSimilarly, it’s hard to buy the story of a clumsy Chinese government with no prior knowledge scrambling to untangle some kind of low-level rogue adventurism days after a demarche of the egregious airspace intrusion.

For one thing, fumbles are not characteristic of China’s well-oiled establishment, in which decision-making is centralised, coordination tight and discipline top-down. And certainly not in the realm of foreign policy regarding the United States, when a detente of sorts has just been painstakingly etched at the highest level during President Xi Jinping’s meeting with Biden last November at the Group of 20 summit in Bali.

A Chinese surveillance balloon, whether weather vessel or spy sensor, flying so near US airspace so close to the first planned visit by a visiting US Secretary of State since 2017, would surely require sanction at a suitably high level.

Any lone wolf warrior knows better than to go against directions set by Xi, whose status as paramount leader and core of the Chinese Community Party was secured at the 20th Party Congress last October. His reminder on that same occasion of the need for national unity as China faces “dangerous storms” on the horizon should have been crystal clear.

If anything, the episode was more likely a deliberate act planned after some consideration rather than some unfortunate unplanned encounter.

It would come as little surprise if the Chinese had used this incident to test the Americans. From fortifying islets in disputed waters of the South China Sea to flying more planes closer to the Taiwan Strait median line more recently, China has a long track record of taking provocative actions to test countries’ reactions and stretch the boundaries of permissive state behaviour.

With the formation of Aukus (the trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the Quad (the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the United States), the recently announced plans for a greater US military presence in the Philippines, and an ongoing chips war, it would be surprising if China did not feel encircled and suspicious about moves by the West it deems as threats to its rise.

More likely then that the balloon was a vehicle to test the diplomatic weather. It would allow the Chinese to probe US reactions, and ascertain just how much slack the Biden administration would cut them, and whether it would turn a blind eye to their assertive actions in the interests of maintaining positive bilateral ties.

Repeated Chinese claims the weekend before that the balloon was a civilian weather airship straying off course, coupled with a somewhat apologetic tone, would have given the United States an easy out in discounting this Chinese challenge. But unfortunately for the Chinese, these efforts to assuage American sensitivities and normalise an unfriendly activity failed.

The Americans did not take the bait. “We know it’s a surveillance balloon.... We know this is a Chinese balloon and that it has the ability to manoeuvre,” Brig-Gen Ryder stated unequivocally last Friday.

So who won?The United States undoubtedly emerged stronger from this exchange, having sent a clear message that foreign policy misbehaviour threatening US national security interests will be met with proportionate opprobrium. It did not shy away from calling out perpetrators or giving fair warning to other countries of the prospect of clandestine Chinese intelligence-gathering.

This is a standard US playbook by now that should serve as a deterrent to any country seeking to challenge the status quo. In fact, US actions to shape the narrative here interestingly bear striking resemblance to US revelations of Russia’s “imminent attack” on Ukraine in early February 2022, which had the effect of readying European allies for action, testing the international community’s reactions, and putting Russia on notice.

Most importantly, the incident demonstrated that public opinion and a free press can be an advantage to a powerful democracy in marshalling political will to tackle foreign policy challenges, not its Achilles heel.

Big power brinksmanshipWhile Balloon-gate has generated pessimism over the trajectory of US-China ties, I remain far more optimistic.

It is not by any stretch of the imagination a generation-defining international crisis in the way the Cuban missile crisis was when leaders from both sides had their hands on the nuclear button.

But in the same manner that the 1962 stand-off gave both superpowers – the United States and what was then the Soviet Union – a stronger grasp of each other’s strategic calculus and created an opportunity for joint problem-solving, marking a turning point in US-Soviet relations, perhaps this balloon altercation might similarly expand the envelope for US and Chinese leaders to talk once tempers cool.

The hope is also that this episode underscored the importance of open communications in crisis management. Both sides had hotlines open and dialogue almost daily at various levels, with Blinken speaking to top Chinese foreign policy official Wang Yi before the previous Saturday’s startling conclusion.

This is not to say that the balloon’s presence in US skies is a minor infraction. A big bold line must be drawn on the infringement of territorial sovereignty of another country.

This game of big power brinksmanship could be dangerous if both sides keep pushing each other’s buttons, something the United States, too, is guilty of.

A repeat of an openly publicised visit by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to Taiwan after strong reactions by China to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip last August can look like a similar act of provocation designed to do just that. His trip could come in March, which would be even more problematic should it coincide with “lianghui”, the annual parliamentary meeting of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference scheduled that same month.

But compared with more serious close encounters, like the 2001 Hainan incident where an air collision occurred between US and Chinese forces, the hope is that this blimp will be but a blip on superpower ties.

There are budding signs that a more optimistic outlook could prevail. On Wednesday, China apologised to Costa Rica for a similar balloon overflying its territory, a message likely to have another audience in mind.

And despite the incident coming just before his State of the Union speech, President Biden chose not to let it dominate his remarks, opting instead to highlight that the United States still desires to cooperate with China even as it will do everything to protect itself.

Indeed, this won’t be the last time a trial balloon testing superpower ties will be floated. The question is how they will respond to the next one. But the greater challenge is for either side to avoid flying one altogether. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network

Lin Suling is editor, OpEd, at The Straits Times.