the reasons why the Chinese balloon crisis may serve as a turning point in the new Cold War

 

The Chinese balloon controversy has the potential to mark a turning point in the world's perilous new superpower rivalry because it provided Americans with a first-hand glimpse of Beijing's threat to their national security.

In comparison to the multi-layered espionage, economic, cyber, military, and geopolitical rivalry that is rising every day, the craft, which US intelligence classified as an observation balloon, offered a rather low-tech, small security danger.

However, the balloon provided a dramatic moment when the thought of a Chinese danger to the US homeland was neither remote, speculative, invisible, or years in the future as it floated through US skies until being shot down on Saturday off the Carolinas. It also highlighted how, in today's divided America, Washington tends to blame rather than unite when faced with a threat.

Chinese balloons have entered US airspace before, both under this administration and the past, and military officials told CNN that this particular incident was not viewed as posing a particularly serious threat to national security or intelligence. But its taunting days-long sashay from Montana to the Eastern Seaboard provoked an outrage in Washington and a media frenzy.

The White House tried to explain why it hadn't instantly destroyed the balloon as authorities in South Carolina cautioned citizens not to fire potshots at the high-flying Chinese intruder with their firearms in a moment of global high stakes and high farce.

President Joe Biden was left in a very weak position as a result, and his Republican detractors pounced. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken was about to go on a trip to Beijing that was abruptly postponed as the political tempest erupted, the balloon could not simply be ignored.

Mitch McConnell, the head of the Senate's Republican Party, said in a statement on Sunday that "we should not have allowed the People's Republic of China to make a mockery of our airspace."

Beijing expressed unusual remorse for what it described as a weather monitoring airship's intrusion, but its detractors view the incident as the latest illustration of a brazen willingness to flex its power outside of its region, to violate international agreements, and as additional proof of an aggressive attempt to expand its influence and intelligence operations around the world, which have targeted businesses, universities, Chinese Americans, and traditional telecommunications networks.