Balloon Blunder

By David Cheng

            By now, the entire world has heard of the United States’ downing of an alleged spy balloon from the People’s Republic of China. Since then, there have been additional incidents of unidentified aerial objects being shot down by the U.S. Air Force after breaching U.S. airspace. There are unconfirmed claims that those objects also belong to China. A lot is still unclear, but what is crystal clear is that the Chinese leadership made a severe blunder that, in the end, harmed their own interests. If China really wants to repair its relationship with the United States, it’s doing the exact opposite of that right now. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed his upcoming trip to China that was supposed to mark an upswing in U.S.-China relations after Biden’s meeting with Xi Jinping last November. It’s safe to say that it will be a while before the United States feels comfortable sitting down at the negotiating table with China again. 

            Indeed, this is not good for China’s long-term position in the world at all. With the war in Ukraine exposing Russia’s military weaknesses to the world, China finds itself in a situation where it doesn’t have a major ally it can rely on. If China’s leaders do not want to find themselves being backed into a corner by the U.S. and its allies, then they should make an actual good-faith attempt to restore diplomatic and trade relationships to what they once were. 

            The United States, for its part, has utilized this balloon incident to the maximum extent possible to bolster its own position as the defender of the democratic world order. The resolute response to the alleged spy balloon sends a clear message to China: the United States will not tolerate any attempt to destabilize or weaken the international system. And this is the correct message; the U.S. should make sure that China is willing to play by the rules before conducting any serious negotiations. We shouldn’t let any nation get away with violating the sovereignty of another nation, even if the aggressor is a particularly powerful nation. One need only look at the weak Western response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea to see how a seemingly “small” incident can lead to a misguided notion that waging a full-blown war against another nation is acceptable. The United States should never seek war with any other nation, but it should endeavor to provide an adequate response to all international issues that concern it; a strong response may even prevent war by forcing autocrats to think twice about doing something that could have serious negative repercussions for their own regime’s stability. China should cease these useless tactics of harassment and instead approach the United States in earnest, if only for its own benefit.