Washington backs off. Chinese spy balloon attacks Joe Biden

Was it spying or not? A Chinese balloon shot down by the US military in February was packed with technology — including from the United States. But it was said that he did not provide any information to China.

It wasn’t that bad, says the Pentagon four months after the US Air Force shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon. At least that’s what Pat Ryder, a spokesman for the US Department of Defense, claimed at a media conference.

Ryder told reporters in February that it was known that “the blimp had intelligence-gathering capabilities.” But it was (…) and our assessment now is that no collection occurred during transit or overflight of the United States. “Our efforts also contributed to that,” Ryder added.

Shouldn’t the US have dropped the balloon at all, but should China have believed it was a weather balloon? After all, the incident caused a significant cooling in relations between the two superpowers.

Joe Biden downplays the incident

The fact that a balloon packed with technology should not have collected any information when it flew over it, as the US now claims, is frowned upon. To some, it appears to be an appeasement strategy by Joe Biden, who downplayed the incident as a “stupid incident.” Chris Chappelle of the YouTube channel “China Uncensored” believes that the US president simply does not want and does not want to get into any trouble.

Ultimately, Joe Biden is keen to stabilize strained relations with China. At the beginning of February, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a trip to Beijing on short notice because of the airship issue. In late June, Blinken traveled to Beijing to meet with Xi Jingbin. Conflicts in the lead-up to the visit should be avoided at all costs.

American engineering aboard a Chinese airship

The suspected spy balloon was in the United States and Canada for several days at the beginning of February. The US Air Force pulled it out of the skies off the coast of South Carolina on February 4 and pulled the wreckage out of the sea.

It became clear from the analysis that part of the technology used came from the United States, as indicated by the Wall Street Journal in the preliminary investigation report. He writes. Some of the items were commercially available items that could also be ordered online. These devices are integrated with specialized Chinese sensors.

The Wall Street Journal concluded from a mixture of high-tech and traditional technology that the balloon was intended more for observational purposes than scientific observations, as China has always claimed. It remains unclear why the balloon did not seem to transmit the information collected. It could be due to a malfunction or countermeasures taken by the US military.

with the material agency.