Balloon fiasco full of diplomatic hot air

Tokyo: Balloons are cheaper than satellites and have the appearance of being innocent. They are also full of hot air.

All these characteristics are a useful allegory for the spy balloon fiasco that has dominated US-China relations for the past week – a whirlwind of cheap espionage, subterfuge, and diplomatic theatre that has captivated millions in a sideshow that both superpowers would have gladly avoided.

Beijing dispatched Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng to “make serious démarches” over Washington’s decision to shoot down the balloon that finished its journey 20,000 metres off the US East Coast on Sunday.

The remnants of the large balloon drift above the Atlantic Ocean, with a US fighter jet and its contrail seen below it.Credit:AP

“China expresses resolute opposition and strong protest toward the incident on behalf of the Chinese government,” Xie said on Monday.

Who, you might ask? Exactly. The seniority of Xie’s position not the content of his message carries the best signal of how Beijing is handling this fiasco.

A day earlier China’s Foreign Ministry had conveyed its “serious concerns” about the incident to Washington. “Serious concerns” is the diplomatic parallel of a tut-tut, just one notch above “solemn representations”. But the demarcation allows Beijing to engage in a performative outrage that moves in a cycle and maintains its baseline narrative of China against the West.

In playing up the rhetoric while playing down the personnel, the Foreign Ministry has fuelled its nationalistic domestic audience while avoiding escalating the situation with the US.

The timeline of events shows the US was also at pains to avoid bringing the balloon to the public’s attention. Bloomberg reported on Sunday that Washington was aware the balloon was in US airspace as early as January 28, six days before it went public, and four days before Chase Doak, a local photographer in Montana spotted it hovering over his property in the western state.

The delay is not a strong indication of US intelligence agencies being preoccupied with concerns about the Chinese balloon’s threat to national security. It is a fact of modern geopolitical tension that the world’s two superpowers spy on each other. It’s just that usually they don’t get caught by members of the public posting pictures of their spy craft online. (China claims the balloon is a civilian meteorological device that had blown helplessly off course).

Once the photo of the balloon went viral, the US had no choice but to engage in its own performative diplomacy. It was the image going public rather than the presence of the balloon itself that forced President Joe Biden to respond to growing domestic political pressure about being too soft on China. He ordered it shot down.

There are few positives out of this distraction for either side but one stands out. The “guardrails” that have been established between Beijing and Washington since Biden took office and Chinese officials emerged from zero-COVID hostility appear to be working.

Both sides knew how the other was going to react before they did anything concrete. It would be surprising if US authorities had not said to their Chinese counterparts that they were going to shoot the balloon down. Likewise, the Chinese would have made them fully aware that it would invoke a rhetorical response but nothing more. Biden said on Sunday that the White House had been communicating with their Chinese counterparts throughout.

Significantly, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delayed his trip to Beijing to meet with President Xi Jinping this week, rather than cancelling it altogether. The meeting will be vital ahead of any one-on-one between Biden and Xi later this year when trade, climate change, military competition, and the economic coercion of US allies such as Australia will be top of the agenda.

The measured response from both sides shows the issues in the relationship are far bigger than any two-school-bus-sized balloon.

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