Chinese spy balloon: pop goes any hope of a superpower détente

“Can we have our balloon back please?” came the request from China. That might be a bit tricky for two reasons. Firstly, there’s really not much of the balloon or its surveillance equipment left after its encounter with a US Air Force F-22 fighter jet and a Sidewinder missile. Secondly, the American intel boffins haven’t finished piecing together the remains to try and discover its capabilities.

The balloon story has comedy value – Americans in Montana firing guns at something 12 miles out of their range is an example. But it’s also a deeply serious affair and one which both sides need to learn from for when a far more serious crisis engulfs them.

The Americans probably monitored the balloon for days before it became a news story. It’s since become known that similar Chinese surveillance craft intruded on US airspace at least three times during the Trump presidency (2017-2021). This latest version floated over Alaska, into Canada, then down to Idaho before it was spotted by the public in Montana. They will have known it passed slowly over a USAF base and its Intercontinental Ballistic Missile silos. They will also have worked out that China’s risible explanation, that it was a weather monitoring balloon, which had blown off course, meant that Beijing was not going to engage seriously. If that was true, then Beijing would have informed Washington. So they shot it down.

If China is to be believed, then you have to accept an interesting coincidence. A second Chinese surveillance balloon, drifting over Latin America was, according to the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, also a weather balloon which had been blown off course.

President Biden didn’t really have much choice but to let the air out of the one over the United States. The Republicans were calling him weak, and he had to demonstrate that the US would not let a clear violation of its territorial sovereignty stand. Beijing huffed and puffed and made vague threats about a response but saying the US had broken with international “practice” by using force was a de facto admission that the US was within international law.

Washington called off Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing but that was a blow to both sides. The incident illustrates the tense relationship between the two superpowers and raises questions about their abilities to handle a crisis and also about China’s motives in sending the balloon over the US. Did President Xi sign off on it? Are there factions in the hierarchy who wanted to prevent the Blinken trip, or just some overenthusiastic interpreting of how much leeway a license to spy gives?

One of the topics on the agenda for the Blinken trip was how to establish what the Americans call “guardrails” to prevent crises from getting out of hand, and “offramps” to lower tensions if they do. It’s unclear if the two countries have a smoothly functioning crisis management system allowing them to communicate at high level in real time. If not, then establishing one will now have to wait. And that’s a problem.

The State Department will probably try to resurrect the visit at some point this year. But what if the new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy goes to Taiwan first? China’s response would have to be calibrated above the military exercises it conducted after Nancy Pelosi’s adventure last autumn. McCarthy, a Republican, is thought to want to make the trip and has said “China’s never going to tell me where I can and can’t go”. But there are no dates set. McCarthy’s presence in Taiwan would be incendiary. Xin Qiang of Fudan University in Shanghai told the Washington Post that if McCarthy shows up before the Blinken visit then “there’s no need to talk about whether [Blinken] will come or not. Even if he does, he won’t be received.” It’s doubtful he would go – the sabre rattling by Beijing would be so loud as to prevent it.

There’s also the possibility that Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul will go to Taiwan this spring, although that would be less of a slap in the face for Beijing than someone of McCarthy’s stature. McCaul, also a Republican, is a strong supporter of Taiwan. If he goes, and if Beijing is looking for trouble after having its balloon destroyed – that will be an opportunity.

The debris from the balloon and its surveillance platform fell 58,000 feet into the Atlantic off the coast of South Carolina. Officials suggest most of its equipment was destroyed. That is plausible, but so is the possibility that the Americans do not want the Chinese to know how much of the kit they have. The US will want to know how good the resolution on the cameras was, if the software on the surveillance platform could be transmitted back to China via satellite, if the data scrambled, and if the data could be wiped remotely.

The term “the balloon’s gone up” is thought to derive from the First World War when the release of observation balloons to monitor troop movements signalled impending trouble. The basic technology is pre-20th century – the terminology still fits in the 21^st.

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