Chinese balloon soars across U.S.; Blinken scraps Beijing trip

How much drama, fear, scandal and mediatic show put together the US just for a small meteorological balloon..

What a double standard, the US being the country that spies on and monitors the rest of the world the most for its geopolitical ambitions...

Go shiny little beautiful Chinese balloon, keep giving them a bitter hard time to make the world laugh a little more...

LOL !!..

"the presence of this balloon in our airspace ... is a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law and it is unacceptable this occurred.”

That statement come from a nation that regularly flew their assets to other sovereign nation airspace either for taking live or just collecting some intel.

https://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/government-relations/advocacy/targeted-killing-and-the-rule-of-law/

https://www.businessinsider.com/iran-shot-down-one-of-us-militarys-most-advanced-drones-2019-6

There was NOTHING to regret about, America doing clandestine spying activities 24/7/365 at China!

No apology needed !

China says it's a meteorological civilian balloon. Right...

Mr.Blinken, you are not welcome to step foot on China soil. Glad to hear you scrap your trip, please don't ask anymore for talks.

Chinese has NO INTEREST to hear your reasons or excuses for Ukraine war and asking China a tougher stance over Russia or Pres. Putin.

Russia is China's goid friend, they provided us cheap oil and LPG, just $60 a barrel of oil with priority exports to China, where can we find this kind of bargain. We are sincerely hoping the Russians will won their final victory!

“Two 2024 reelection challengers, former President Donald Trump, and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador, said the U.S. should immediately shoot down the balloon.”

Then try to score more political campaign points depending on who the falling debris kills. Leave it to the experts.

elephant200Today  07:46 am JST

Mr.Blinken, you are not welcome to step foot on China soil. 

Pro-CCP Chinese are not welcome to step foot on U.S. soil.

China wouldn't tolerate it if it was one of ours, and neither should the U.S.

Pop the damn thing with an arrow. Guide it down gently and examine what the balloon is carrying.

What on earth is Biden waiting for?! Besides, it's potentially dangerous for commercial aircraft.

Then try to score more political campaign points depending on who the falling debris kills. Leave it to the experts.

Yeah, if you believe that! Lol

Then try to score more political campaign points depending on who the falling debris kills. Leave it to the experts.

What Trump and Haley said is perfectly legitimate

No, it isn’t. Despite what you, 45 and haley propose the US military have chosen not to shoot it down. Why is that?

“Pro-CCP Chinese are not welcome to step foot on U.S. soil.”

And I thought the US is a “free” country, I guess I was wrong. I can see the trend here, the US will bring up every tiny, little thing just to smear China, but too afraid to look in the mirror.

What Trump and Haley said is perfectly legitimate.

If an enemy aircraft breaches your airspace, and it doesn't heed or follow instructions to leave immediately (which a balloon obviously can't do) ... you shoot it down.

I completely agree.

Remember this is the same sharp mind who proposed nuking hurricanes, and though haley is most certainly full of hot air her knowledge on balloon satellites is limited.

Now when was it a US spyplane crashed in China and the US wanted the wreckage back?

Spy vs spy.

Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, and a balloon filled with a lot of hot air.

No difference between those three.

bass4funk, but the US is too afraid to shoot it down because it will be served as a precedent. You will see China shooting down the US spy planes or balloons which the US constantly use, and next on the lists maybe US satellites.

Remember this is the same sharp mind who proposed nuking hurricanes, and though haley is most certainly full of hot air her knowledge on balloon satellites is limited

And the Chinese are laughing at this administration once again.

 but the US is too afraid to shoot it down because it will be served as a precedent.

This President definitely is.

You will see China shooting down the US spy planes or balloons which the US constantly use, and next on the lists maybe US satellites.

It’s already tried that. Didn’t go so well.

The Republicans once again showing they side not only with Russia, they side with China too. Just look at these crazed rants;

"Biden should shoot down the Chinese spy balloon immediately. President Trump would never have tolerated this," Greene wrote in a tweet Thursday. "President Trump would never have tolerated many things happening to America."

I guess she would recommend using those religious funded space lasers to put a hole in it.

"Maybe if the Biden Administration wasn't so worried about banning your gas stoves, they would have seen this Chinese spy balloon coming," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tweeted Friday.

And you can always count on "Gym" Jordan to tie in a far-right faux trope. Next tweet he'll be saying the balloon is connecting to Hunter's laptop.

In an interview with Fox News, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., expressed fears that the balloon had the capability to do more than simply spy on Americans. "My concern is that the federal government obviously doesn't know what's in that balloon. Is that bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?" Comer speculated.

And this guy is the Repub chair of the Oversight Committee - and a complete idiot.

Maybe all these Repubs forgot this balloon may be a new "drone" way of delivering Trump's Chinese-made clothing line to all his Repub customers. Watch to see if it goes over Jordan's house and drops out three "Trump Collection" shirts.

Mr.Blinken, you are not welcome to step foot on China soil. 

Apparently he is as the Chinese apologized, essentially for getting caught, in an effort to repair things.

More than what they were looking at, my question is how they were stupid enough to think we wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t mind?

There are the pretend experts from the right!

Hakman wrote:

What Trump and Haley said is perfectly legitimate.

If an enemy aircraft breaches your airspace, and it doesn't heed or follow instructions to leave immediately (which a balloon obviously can't do) ... you shoot it down.

And if you've read the article, you already know that the balloon is roughly the size of two school buses. Plus, it's a balloon.

The likelihood of any debris causing any injury or serious damage is slight -- especially if it's shot down over an area that's not densely populated.

> Attempting to take out the high-altitude balloon with the air defense systems the US has is "very difficult," it's hard to engage it with fighter aircraft, and shooting it down also risks injuries and fatalities on the ground, explained Brynn Tannehill, a former naval aviator and senior technical analyst at the RAND Corporation think tank.

Then there are the real experts!

Attempting to take out the high-altitude balloon with the air defense systems the US has is "very difficult," it's hard to engage it with fighter aircraft, and shooting it down also risks injuries and fatalities on the ground, explained Brynn Tannehill, a former naval aviator and senior technical analyst at the RAND Corporation think tank.

One-side is a lot more credible than the other!

Shooting down a suspected Chinese spy balloon could be a lot harder than it sounds, former Navy pilot says

https://www.yahoo.com/news/shooting-down-suspected-chinese-spy-210053701.html

Sounds like the US needs to spend more on the military if they can't shoot down an errant "weather balloon" over one of the least populated areas of the nation.

However, it could just be they someone called a bluff and they don't want to set a precedent of countries shooting down CIA assets, er.., weather studying devices.

Oddly, this event will arouse far more media and political interest than all the cyber-hacking, industrial espionage, paying college professors to share govt funded research, etc., that has been the CCP trademark for a good 20 years.

@Hakman wrote:

Sounds like the US needs to spend more on the military if they can't shoot down an errant "weather balloon" over one of the least populated areas of the nation.

However, it could just be they someone called a bluff and they don't want to set a precedent of countries shooting down CIA assets, er.., weather studying devices.

> @Bass wrote:

I completely agree.

But.......

When a weather balloon went rogue almost 25 years ago, fighter jets fired 1,000 rounds at it and couldn't bring it down

https://www.yahoo.com/news/weather-balloon-went-rogue-almost-161314996.html

Oh, my..........

Hello Numan, I think we agree then, a defense force should be able to protect the country from a balloon.

And the "Darwin Award" for a suggested response to this balloon goes to, who else, Donald Trump JR;

“If Joe Biden and his administration are too weak to do the obvious and shoot down an enemy surveillance balloon perhaps we just let the good people of Montana do their thing… I imagine they have the capability and the resolve to do it all themselves.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-jr-solution-chinese-202026957.html

So this balloon is travelling at 60K feet - obviously in range of all those AR15s the MAGA-masses love so much. So they should all head out to the back yard and open up at that target 11 miles up in the sky.

Of course, the balloon won't be coming down but all those bullets will.

Pure MAGA-madness.

@OntheTrail

Hello Numan, I think we agree then, a defense force should be able to protect the country from a balloon.

I thought we agreed that most people on this thread do not know #$"& about aeronautics or ballooning and are just blowing hot air!

And the "Darwin Award" for a suggested response to this balloon goes to, who else, Donald Trump JR;

“If Joe Biden and his administration are too weak to do the obvious and shoot down an enemy surveillance balloon perhaps we just let the good people of Montana do their thing… I imagine they have the capability and the resolve to do it all themselves.”

Lol, comedy gold from the heavens.

The Republicans once again showing they side not only with Russia, they side with China too.

If that were true then why are they always so worried when Republicans get into power and love it when we have a Democrat President? Why is it that they talk smack to a Democrat President and take a more cautious tone when a Republican President is in office?

And you can always count on "Gym" Jordan to tie in a far-right faux trope. Next tweet he'll be saying the balloon is connecting to Hunter's laptop.

Ok and that rant was supposed to what? Make Jim Jordan feel bad. Anyway, they just announced a massive explosion over Montana, I hope this…..President woke up and decided to do the right thing and get it down.

And this guy is the Repub chair of the Oversight Committee - and a complete idiot. 

We thought the same about Nadler.

Did it not fly over America’s backyard? Are the Canadians okay with this?

Actually curious what Desert Tortoise has to say about all this. He (I think given past statements), seems to have expertise in relevant areas.

Exciting stuff. Looks like 19th century warfare. If it's over US airspace, just go get it and check it out to see if it's a "spy balloon!" If not, then shoot the thing down. With a slingshot from a biplane if you want.

So, the rogue state of the USA never send balloons, drones, ships, submarines and satellites to spy on literally everyone. Get over it Blinken.

I don't like the balloon being there, but I'll leave it to the experts and not the politicians.

poor Blinken cant even be counted on to aggressively confront China about their balloon.

How weak.

Biden was first briefed about the Chinese surveillance balloon on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. She did not shed light on why the administration waited until Thursday to make its concerns public.

Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, refused to say on Friday 

President Joe Biden declined to comment on the matter when questioned

most "transparent" administration in HISTORY, they said.

Ah it happens all the time nothing to worry about!

Does it really? and if so, wouldnt shooting down one of them actually stop this?

The US employs similar balloons for intelligence gathering and uses some of the same covers (excuses) the Chinese are using for theirs. "Just a weather balloon". Right?

The US models are maybe not as painfully obvious as this big fat painfully noticeable thing China sent over the US like and enlarged hemorrhoid floating over the midwest but the idea and intent are the same. It, to me, appears to be kind of a dare, you shoot ours down and we start shooting yours down. It is not as if the US hasn't been doing exactly the same thing for, well, decades really.

There is a second spy balloon confirmed over Latin America now.

The first balloon was over Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota, the places you would pick as the most sparsely populated spots in America.

with US Air Force bases in all 3 of those states.

If all it took to cancel Blinken's trip is to put a balloon in the air, I would do that every single time he is trying to come.

Bang!

According to local resident footage, it either self-destructed, or Biden ordered it shot down, as a jet was heard and seen right before.

PS Like the one over Japan a couple of years back, at 60,000 feet there’s not many aircraft that can get close.

Btw, for you city slickers just because a place has a low population density doesn't mean there is nothing to damage down there on the ground. There is plenty to damage including people's homes and barns, power lines (can you see the headlines, "Chinese Balloon Causes Widespread Power Failure") highways (imagine pieces landing on I-80 causing accidents). How about if it hurts someone's livestock? I live in one of those low density places hours from the big city but there are homes spread out all over the region. The stuff dangling beneath that balloon would likely come right through the roof of a building causing injury and maybe death. And who gets to pay for the damage? Uncle Sammy because it was their Air Force that shot it down. Think any jury in the US would rule in favor of the US Government against the party on the ground who is aggrieved?

Two things that Putin and Xi are good at - playing and manipulating the US far-right to turn against their own government.

China doesn't need balloons to collect intel - their space-based assets are fully capable. But they could send a balloon with a couple old refrigerators underneath and watch the Repubs go apoplectic - which as we've seen with the far-right meltdown, is exactly happened.

The Repubs are just Russia's and China's Fifth Column - working to destroy our democracy from within.

The Chinese payload is over 3 buses in size - so it is huge and dangerous, if the balloon has a failure.

My non-expert opinion after reading a few stories about it is that it is a science balloon that ended up over the US by mistake. I also suspect that the electronics inside it have all been fried making them useless. Chinese satellites cover the US daily with spy cameras, so the visual sensors on the balloon probably don't have the same resolution capabilities as their satellites.

Almost anyone in the US can launch a small payload high altitude balloon legally by taking a few precautions and contacting the FAA to get specific approvals. Students do this across the country as part of science projects. The rules aren't hard to understand.

under 4 lbs

under 6x6 inch payload

no cellular communications while in the air

a predicted flight path and altitude are expected, but it is expected they will be inaccurate. ;)

https://medium.com/loonar-technologies/faa-101-how-to-legally-get-your-high-altitude-balloon-to-near-space-742a0acf0c45

most "transparent" administration in HISTORY, they said.

This is hysterical coming from the same folks who were openly supportive of previous administrations and their lack transparency.

And no, "transparency" doesn't mean sharing any and all information with the public.

PENTAGON: "We're not going to get into an hour-by-hour of where the balloon is."

REPORTER: "Does the public not have the right to know...?"

PENTAGON: "The public certainly has the ability to look up in the sky and see where the balloon is."

transparency.

Two things that Putin and Xi are good at - playing and manipulating the US far-right to turn against their own government.

They haven’t been in power for 2 years, wrong party…again

China doesn't need balloons to collect intel - their space-based assets are fully capable.

You actually believe that?? Even the Pentagon doesn’t believes that.

The Repubs are just Russia's and China's Fifth Column - working to destroy our democracy from within.

Again, you got the wrong party mixed up, this is the 7th time that this administration got played by our adversaries. This is beyond embarrassing.

Just wondering; if instead of shooting it down and risk having it crash, is it possible to have someone from a helicopter shoot it with a harpoon with a rope attached to it, snag it, then lower it down as the chopper slowly descends?

Could even use a unmanned drone helicopter to reduce the risk of harm to humans.

This is hysterical coming from the same folks who were openly supportive of previous administrations and their lack transparency.

yet we are not talking about previous administrations- but this administration.

withhold information for days, wont answer questions from the press, wont provide documents, hide things that already happened until the media finds out.

yeah, thats called non transparent.

So what is this administration doing that you would consider transparent?

They told the public to look up in the sky themselves f they want to know where the balloon is.

Some things to consider.

The balloon is at an altitude of 60,000 feet, or a little more than 18,000 meters.

Sixty thousand feet is readily achieved by several American planes, such as the U-2.

It has been stated that a decision was made not to shoot it down, out of fear that descending parts might injure the public.

A suggestion: allow an American plane to put just one or two bullets into the balloon, so that, maybe, it will descend slowly, as it loses whatever gas is being used to keep it aloft. Yes, I know, the U-2 does not normally carry weapons, but how hard would it be to attach a fifty caliber rifle set to fire single shots at a time?

Back in my days with the USAF, we had planes that could catch descending spy-satellite pods, attached to parachutes, as they came down over the Pacific Ocean. From what I heard, they worked with excellent dependability. In those days, digital cameras were not available, so film had to be returned to Earth. Perhaps, as the balloon gradually descends, it would be practical to attempt an in-air retrieval, like we used to do in the old days. Even if the retrieval did not work, a slowly descending balloon and instrument pod would not pose the same hazards as an instrument pod that had been blown to bits at high altitude. Also, if it is still over the Midwest of the USA, that is known to be a sparsely populated area.

It would be very, very interesting to find out what it being carried by this balloon. Is it indeed an innocent civilian balloon, or something more sinister?

yet we are not talking about previous administrations- but this administration

Oh, but I am. It's utterly hypocritical to criticize this administration for not being transparent, doubly so because we're talking national security.

What, do you think the public has the rights to the nuclear codes? Maybe we have the right to know where all the nuclear missile silos are and how many missiles each contains?

Although transparency is ideal, there are clearly some situations, and some information, where it'd be less than ideal to share publicly, and I fail to see how this isn't one such situation.

Maybe China is making the case that they can fill a balloon with chemicals and drop them on America. Maybe? It's possible.

Nothing new for the US.

Project Genetrix

 It is not as if the US hasn't been doing exactly the same thing for, well, decades really.

Yup.

I mean you missed this one, right?

"Senate Democrat joins GOP in thumping Biden over Chinese balloon response"

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/03/china-spy-balloon-us-airspace-00081073

@Michael Machida, many such chemical balloons came over and landed in Japan, supposedly from DPRK, though no one said so openly.

The reported shoot-down above was over Billings, Montana. What was it, I wonder?

I guess one other risk would be setting off a forest fire…

It doesnt matter what the US does or doesnt do to others, we need to respond when it is done to us

You still don't understand. If the US starts shooting down Chinese balloons then China starts shooting down US balloons, and things escalate from there. So your military professionals make a judgement call whether the benefits of shooting it down outweigh the negative consequences.

I think making it a diplomatic problem and embarrassing the Chinese is a better way to go. The Chinese have been whining and stomping their feet about the US "abusing" export controls but this makes them look like utter hypocrites. Another reason to squeeze them on semiconductors and restrict investment there while prohibiting Chinese entities from buying US tech start ups. That is where the real benefits lie.

flowersToday  08:42 am JST

“Pro-CCP Chinese are not welcome to step foot on U.S. soil.”

And I thought the US is a “free” country, I guess I was wrong. I can see the trend here, the US will bring up every tiny, little thing just to smear China, but too afraid to look in the mirror.

The US is indeed a "free"country. Infinitely moreso than your Communist China. A dictatorship where expressing a view contrary to that of the govt is illegal and can be prosecuted.

China, the militant autocracy that is seen as a threat by the region and the whole world is the one that needs to look in the mirror.

Yeah, still going with the experts. They seem intelligent while the detractors sounds like emotional children.

Obvious choice here.

My non-expert opinion after reading a few stories about it is that it is a science balloon that ended up over the US by mistake. I also suspect that the electronics inside it have all been fried making them useless.

the Fu makes an important point. The USAF in all likelihood disabled the electronics hanging beneath that balloon. The US has possessed microwave weapons for exactly that purpose for some time. Anyone who has followed the goings on at Area 51 for any length of time knows the Air Force has long been able to do things that distort the images taken by photographers out in the desert on the boundary line to the base. And the Russians temporarily disabled the space shuttle Challenger on the program's 13th mission on 10 October 1984 using a ground based laser in an experimental complex near Lake Balkash. The shuttle's nav and comms were temporarily rendered non functional and the laser made the crew very sick.

You still don't understand. If the US starts shooting down Chinese balloons then China starts shooting down US balloons, and things escalate from there.

Sounds like cope. I've seen no evidence that the US is flying giant weather balloons over China. I suspect the Chinese would be complaining loudly if they were. From what I've read, it's extremely difficult to shoot down a weather balloon because it has extremely weak radar and heat signatures. Many attempts would fail. It could get embarrassing.

There's something big on the horizon. Sec. Blinken has to cancel his trip to Taiwan at the last minute. From a few sources that I heard, Russia will execute a huge offensive near or mid of February. China will try doing something rash against Taiwan around the same period.

It's now clear to Beijing that the chance for peaceful reunification is impossible. Japan and South Korea should prepare for a year or more of an indefinite blockade from China. 70% of trade to both nations coming from Taiwan straight, so the blockade of Taiwan Straight and Luzon Straight will see a massive hike in oceanic shipping prices that will lead to price hikes for everything in both countries.

false equivalency- are there US balloons floating over China right now that are posted all over world wide media?

It is not a false equivalency. The only reason there is any mention of this Chinese balloon is its size makes it visible from the ground and a free press in the US latched on to it. China has no free press and would never report a US balloon floating Chinese military installations because they would look bad.

yet they arent embarrassed at all, they are laughing at us. They would have already shot down our balloon in the same situation.

No they won't, and they haven't in the past. The US has been floating intel balloons over other nations since the 1950s. It has always been accepted with gritting teeth by nations because once you start shooting down other nation's intel assets you get a spiral that can lead to open conflict. Most sober minds in a military organization are loathe to go there unless there is a darned good reason. This is not one of these. You have to understand the US and other allied nations have all kinds of unmanned intel assets in the air, on the surface of the water and under water. There is an unspoken agreement among nations to leave each others's intel assets alone unless you are at war, with the fear being that if nations start destroying each others intel assets that itself could lead to war. Plus you lose your eyes doing that. It is self defeating.

Weather balloons travel across the stratosphere every single day. There would be no way to immediately know that this ballon was Chinese since there are no markings.

The Pentagon seems to have made the correct decision not to shoot it down just track it and see where it goes.

Too much hot air from the GOP supporters, all about nothing.

Should America also shoot down the Chinese satellites spying on the country with high-resolution cameras?

It has always been accepted with gritting teeth by nations because once you start shooting down other nation's intel assets you get a spiral that can lead to open conflict.

The problem with your theory is that the balloon operator in Beijing would have no way of knowing that the US military shot down the balloon. If the signal suddenly goes out, why not assume that the balloon has popped and fallen to the ground or that there has been a technical failure.

Should America also shoot down the Chinese satellites spying on the country with high-resolution cameras?

Spy satellites operate above the 100km internationally recognised boundary of space. Unlike this balloon, they don't enter a country's sovereign airspace (apart from rare exceptions).

Blinken is a total diplomatic failure, wherever he goes was his begging for cooperation with America's arrogance behaviour around the world, it was so hard to watch.

What does he want to China? He want the Chinese stop buying Russian oil & LOG, that will stop funding Putin's war in Ukraine.

He is sick enough.

The world record altitude for any helicopter is 40,820 feet.

While there are many military jets that can reach 60K ft, I think the highest helicopters can only get to about 35K ft and that's not hovering. DT will certainly know more. Typically, helicopters are 10K ft or 25K ft flights.

A U-2 plane doesn't have any offensive weapons.

An F-15 has a service ceiling of 65,000 ft, but they can get much higher. A pre-production F-15A "Streak Eagle" reached 103,000 ft after flying to 98K ft (30,000 m) in 3 min and 28 seconds to set 8 time-to-climb records. It coasted the last 5K ft up.

Russian MiG and SUs have beaten most of those time-to-climb records now. However, the F-22 would likely beat them, but neither Lockheed nor the USAF have any interest in sharing F-22 capabilities in public. The F-22 is known to be able to accelerate during vertical flight, however. These numbers are interesting, but not usually relevant towards killing the enemy unless all missiles are expended, but fuel remains, so that guns are the only remaining offensive weapon. I suspect that is highly unlikely.

wallaceToday  12:22 pm JST

Weather balloons travel across the stratosphere every single day. There would be no way to immediately know that this ballon was Chinese since there are no markings.

Except there is a way.

China said it's theirs.

China’s claim that the balloon was merely a weather research “airship” that had blown off course.

Regardless, what a weak administration we have, afraid to shoot down a balloon over our country.

Losers.