Author: Friends of Socialist China

In this article for Fighting Words, Chris Fry discusses the latest developments in – and motivation for – the US’s bizarre War on Balloons. Chris notes that by far the most plausible explanation for the appearance of the first “spy balloon” is that provided by the Chinese government: that it was a meteorological research balloon that had accidentally drifted off-course. Hawkish US politicians and journalists claimed that China was attempting to gather information about the Montana nuclear missile base, and yet: “One could easily go onto the internet to find the location of the Montana missile base. And no balloon could possibly find the location of any of the nuclear missile-carrying submarines the U.S. has stationed around the world under water.” Meanwhile, if international surveillance is the hot topic, “no country conducts more aggressive spying on countries than US imperialism, which it combines with its regime change strategy to overturn governments that it is unable to bend to its will.”

What is the rationale for this manufactured “spy balloon crisis”? The author reminds us that “Biden was a supporter of the Bush doctrine of ‘preemptive strike’ and the Iraq war”, and compares the balloon narrative with the Gulf of Tonkin (phantom) incident of 1964, which was used by the Johnson administration to drive public support for a major US military intervention in Vietnam. Chris points out that the US has been steadily undermining the One China policy and giving strong support to separatist forces in Taiwan Province, with the aim of “provoking China to launch a quite justified but costly war to recover its Taiwan province.” However, it’s increasingly likely that next year’s elections in Taiwan will bring the pro-unification Kuomintang back to power on the island. Chris opines that, for this reason, “the Biden administration is trying to find any pretext, even as absurd as a weather balloon, to spark a war with China before the current pro-independence regime in Taiwan is kicked out next year.”

The author concludes by calling on progressive and anti-war forces in the West to develop a mass peace movement to stop this reckless behavior on the part of the US and its allies.

A stealth F22 fighter, costing some $350 million, managed to shoot down its first aircraft on February 4, a large Chinese balloon off the South Carolina coast. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) stated that it was a weather research device and apologized that it inadvertently passed over U.S. territory because of unexpected wind currents.

But the Biden administration, the Congress and the Pentagon launched a full-scale tirade, accusing China of using balloons to spy on nuclear missile silos, intercept messages and, most importantly, “violating U.S. sovereignty.” The corporate media has whipped up a frenzied campaign of mass hysteria.

Of course, every country, particularly the U.S., proclaims the right to conduct reconnaissance of other countries’ weapons systems that target them. China has more than 500 satellites circling the planet, which obviously makes balloon surveillance superfluous. But no country conducts more aggressive spying on countries than U.S. imperialism, which it combines with its regime change strategy to overturn governments that it is unable to bend to its will.

In the following article, originally published in Global Times, Ken Hammond, Professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University and a member of our advisory group, dissects the grotesque over-reaction to the accidental intrusion of a Chinese meteorological balloon into US airspace and notes that “all this would be funny, if it weren’t so dangerous.”

Situating the recent development against a background that begins at least with President Obama’s 2011 ‘Pivot to Asia’, Ken notes that, sadly, the “rather ridiculous” and “absurd” behaviour on the part of the US, is  “just the latest round in the ongoing effort to demonize China, to prepare the American people for possible conflict, and to ensure that most Americans have only the most one-sided and hostile kind of knowledge and information.”

Noting that a new world order has begun to emerge, Ken points out that: “China has been a leading example of this, having raised the material conditions of the lives of its people over the past 70 years, extending life expectancy, drastically reducing infant mortality, improving housing, providing educational opportunities, and creating national health care systems which saved millions of lives through the course of the COVID-19 epidemic.”

The accomplishments of the Chinese people since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, “are a source of justifiable pride for their country, and serve as an inspiration for many people around the world, but for American elites they represent an existential threat. The rich and powerful in America do not want to share the wealth created by working people with those who actually produce it, in their own country or elsewhere.”

American military and political leaders, and the front pages of the corporate media, have been devoted to the denunciation of China for allowing a balloon to float across the Pacific Ocean and across North America. Although spokesmen for the Pentagon had acknowledged that the balloon actually posed no threat to the US and that any information the so-called spy balloon might gather would be only a redundant version of information routinely available to satellites and already widely known in intelligence circles around the world, pundits and politicians have been almost hysterical to outshout one another and demonstrate their hatred and aggressive intentions toward China. All of this would be funny, if it weren’t so dangerous.

It has been clear for a long time now, since at least the “Pivot to Asia” announced by former president Barack Obama in 2011, that the US has embarked on a campaign to isolate and contain China, to try to disrupt China’s development and derail its efforts to improve the lives of its people and the peoples of other developing countries around the world. The American military maintains bases all around China, and US intelligence agencies operate highly sophisticated listening posts to monitor communications and other kinds of information sources within China. American spy planes routinely fly just beyond the limits of China’s airspace, sometimes even venturing into that airspace, to gather information. And of course the US has a long history of “overflights” by the infamous U-2 aircraft to spy on Cuba, the former Soviet Union, and other countries, not to mention the many American surveillance satellites which track over China every day. 

In the following article Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report Executive Editor and Senior Columnist, joins the dots between the Biden administration’s seemingly insane reaction to a Chinese meteorological research balloon and the longstanding attempts by Washington to bully China into complying with US imperialist strategy.

Margaret writes that, with its bipartisan manufactured hysteria, US politicians “hope to find or create a provocation that will result in congressional and public support for sanctions or even military action.” Furthermore the US government aims to provoke a dangerous over-reaction from China which would serve to deepen public support for anti-China aggression. Thankfully, Margaret observes, the US administration “isn’t smart enough to deal with a nation acting with intelligence and maturity,” as China does.

One terrible byproduct of this Cold War hysteria is a rising trend of anti-Asian racism. “These sentiments start at the top with presidents, congress, and supposedly reputable media. Despite any alleged differences they join together at the opportune moment to spread fear or use nonsense for already ridiculous and dangerous purposes.”

The People’s Republic of China has a space program. They have a space station where they deploy their taikonauts. China has satellites orbiting the earth. Yet despite these advances, we are told that this same country would send a balloon, visible to the naked eye, to spy on the United States. The more logical explanation is just what the Chinese said: a balloon conducting meteorological research was blown off course. There have been several previous instances of such equipment flying in or near U.S. territory .

The mixture of hysteria whipped up by the Biden administration and their mouthpieces in corporate media were fodder for jokes and internet memes. However, U.S. actions which created this incident are part of a pattern of provocations and dangerously amateurish diplomacy.

Joe Biden began his term in office by attempting to bully Beijing. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with their Chinese counterparts in early 2021 and proceeded to insult them very publicly . The interaction was so bad that Yang Jiechie, Director of the Central Commission on Foreign Affairs, felt compelled to say, “Well, I think we thought too well of the United States.  We thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols.” Relations between the two nations have gone steadily downhill ever since.

The Biden administration is now using the same failed playbook it used against Russia and hoping to somehow snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with China. They hope to find or create a provocation that will result in congressional and public support for sanctions or even military action. But their Ukraine policy should be jettisoned instead of copied elsewhere. In instigating Russia to act in Ukraine, Biden succeeded in severing relations between Russia and EU nations, and ended their natural gas sales, to the detriment of Europe. But Russia prepared for sanctions while the Biden team engaged in wishful thinking. Remember when he said the sanctions would, “turn the ruble to rubble?” Ukraine suffers from this miscalculation more than any other country and the U.S. is left to commit desperate acts, such as its probable involvement in the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines. Their fantasy foreign policy consists of escalating tensions for the sake of doing so.

In the below article, which was originally published by the World Socialist Website (WSWS) on February 6, and which has lost none of its pertinence in the ensuing days, Andre Damon demolishes the lies spread regarding the Chinese unmanned civilian airship shot down by the US military and exposes the war-mongering agenda that lies behind the propaganda.

Underlining the seriousness of the incident, Andre notes that it is the first US attack on a Chinese aircraft since the Korean War and continues: “While the specific purpose of the balloon cannot be definitively stated, the notion that the Chinese government is seeking to secretly obtain vital information on US nuclear weapons by means of a gigantic and clearly visible object slowly passing through US airspace is, to put it mildly, ludicrous.

“Far more likely is the account given by Beijing that the high-altitude balloon was conducting meteorological surveillance and was blown off course, entering the United States on January 28.”

He points out that NASA (the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has launched dozens of similar balloon missions as, according to a University of Hawaii Professor, they “offer flight opportunities for unique science investigations that require, or can be done in, near-space.”

The article further notes that: “In publications that are written primarily for those within the state apparatus, a more sober assessment can be found. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a leading think tank connected to US intelligence agencies, commented on Friday that ‘the most likely explanation is that this is an errant weather balloon that went astray.'” Which, incidentally, is exactly the explanation consistently offered by the Chinese side! Perhaps that is the reason for the author’s following observation: “But in the media, such an appraisal is nowhere to be found.”

The article links the present campaign to both previous build-ups prior to US acts of military aggression and the present campaign against China, noting that, “This type of wall-to-wall media hysteria was used to justify the 1991 Gulf War, the 1998 bombing of Yugoslavia, the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the 2011 bombings of Syria and Libya. All of these claims…turned out to be nothing more than hot air.”

It adds that: “Even as the US and NATO powers recklessly escalate the war with Russia over Ukraine, the ruling class is preparing for a conflict with China, for which the war against Russia has been viewed as a necessary precondition.”

Just days before the ‘balloon incident’, US Air Force General Mike Minihan had forecast that the US may be at war with China as early as 2025.

Over the past four days, the American population has been subjected to a barrage of war propaganda over the claim that China sent a huge balloon visible to the naked eye to spy on US nuclear bases.

The media machine is operating at full throttle. Since the balloon’s existence was publicly announced last week, breathless coverage provided minute-by-minute updates on the progress of the floating white balloon as it slowly traversed across the continental United States. The story led every newspaper for days, was the first item on the evening news broadcasts, and dominated the 24-hour cable news networks.

On Friday, former President Donald Trump called for the balloon to be shot down—a demand that was repeated by Republican and Democratic politicians. On Saturday, under orders from Biden, the US Air Force shot down the balloon in the first US attack on a Chinese aircraft since the Korean War.

A day after the existence of the balloon was publicly announced, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his scheduled trip to China, which had been promoted as part of a supposed rapprochement between the two countries.

All of the media coverage has accepted the unsubstantiated claim that the airship was a secret Chinese “surveillance balloon” specifically targeting US military installations.