AMERICA’S ‘CHINESE SPY BALLOON’ MELTDOWN AND THE DANGERS OF DECAYING HEGEMONY
Posted on February 20th, 2023

After weeks of political theater, the Pentagon is walking back its claims that China invaded US airspace with a spy balloon.” But the damage from the media frenzy is already done, and the worst is likely yet to come.

At times, the ways people perceive an object betrays more about the people than the object itself. A case in point: The recent saga of the Chinese spy balloon” may be presented as an allegory of the ever-present threat of airborne Asiatic infiltration, but in reality it tells us far more about the dangerous, paranoid, and absurd heights US Sinophobia has reached. 

It all began with a report from the Billings Gazette, which published footage of the now-infamous balloon flying over Montana on Thursday, Feb. 2. A swiftly issued statement from the Pentagon identified the object as a high altitude surveillance balloon.” Shortly thereafter, the Associated Press reported that a senior official from the Department of Defense had expressed very high confidence” that the spy balloon” was of Chinese origin and flying over sensitive sites to collect information.” In a glaring instance of doublespeak, the AP report further noted that The defense official said the spy balloon was trying to fly over the Montana missile fields, but the U.S. has assessed that it has ‘limited’ value in terms of providing China intelligence it couldn’t already collect by other means, such through [sic] spy satellites” (emphasis added). 

A very clear response from China’s Foreign Ministry confirming their ownership of the unmanned civilian aircraft”—better known as a weather balloon—was almost instantaneously dismissed by the Pentagon and pundits alike. Something else, they asserted, something more sinister, must be afoot.

A very clear response from China’s Foreign Ministry confirming their ownership of the unmanned civilian aircraft”—better known as a weather balloon—was almost instantaneously dismissed by the Pentagon and pundits alike. Something else, they asserted, something more sinister, must be afoot. Never mind that China’s statement of regret that the balloon flew off course due to force majeure” is the simplest and most rational explanation, given that the eastward atmospheric jetstream connecting Asia to North America flows exactly along the same path the balloon took over Alaska, then Montana, and eventually to the coast of South Carolina, where it met its demise via F-22 missile strike. This would, after all, not be the first time similar aircraft have accidentally entered the airspace of foreign nations, as illustrated by the 1998 incident of a Canadian weather balloon that ended up flying over Russia, Norway, and finally landing in Finland after being blown off-course.

Full Report

America’s ‘Chinese spy balloon’ meltdown and the dangers of decaying hegemony (therealnews.com)

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