Regarding the US shooting down of a Chinese balloon, Reuters issued an expert diagnosis on the 5th as “for testing China’s reaction.”
"It doesn't have a military meaning, it's a way to test how the other side responds," said Dean Cheng, senior adviser to the China Program at the US Institute for Peace. "Politically, what do you do about it? If not for the first time, it raises an interesting question: what happened to the previous products? Did we shoot them down?"
"The wind currents that high-altitude balloons depend on for maneuvering on long trips are most unfavorable in the winter," said Andrew Antonio, co-founder of high-altitude balloon startup Urban Sky. "It is very difficult, if not impossible, to target specific military bases with balloons launched from China in the northern hemisphere in March. The balloon's entry into U.S. airspace could be the result of a failed experiment," he noted.
Reuters reported that his remarks suggested that China's intentions may not be to target specific locations in the United States.
Reuters reported that security experts said flying suspected surveillance balloons over the US by China appeared to be a more aggressive (though enigmatic) espionage tactic than relying on satellites and stealing industrial and defense secrets. For decades, surveillance satellites have been used to spy on each other from the air. However, some in Washington were skeptical about China's latest balloon, a White House official said this week's episode was not the first.
Reuters said, “Before using spy satellites, the US used high-altitude aircraft that could not be easily shot down and flew over the Soviet Union, China and Cuba. In April 2001, US-China relations plummeted when a US Navy EP-3E signal intelligence aircraft collided with a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea about 70 miles from China's Hainan province. harassed the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed maritime reconnaissance vessel off the coast of Hainan. China said a US vessel was conducting illegal investigations in the island province.”
The turmoil surrounding a balloon that has grown over the United States has arisen as China builds up its military and challenges the US military presence in the Pacific.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement on the 4th, "This afternoon, under the direction of President Biden, a fighter jet belonging to the US Northern Command successfully shot down a high-altitude reconnaissance balloon sent and owned by China in the airspace off the coast of South Carolina."
"China expresses strong dissatisfaction and protests against the US' use of force to attack a civilian unmanned airship," the foreign ministry said in a statement on the 5th. We have already informed the United States of this situation several times."
"We solemnly protest the actions of the United States and reserve the right to use whatever means necessary to deal with a similar situation," the Chinese Ministry of Defense said in a statement about the downing of the balloon.
On the 28th of last month, the balloon entered the Aleutian Islands at the western end of Alaska, went to Canadian airspace on the 30th, and came back to Idaho in the northern part of the United States on the 31st, and on the 1st intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) It was shot down east of the South Carolina coast after passing over Montana, where the hangar is located.
The United States said other Chinese balloons were recently discovered in Central and South America and have been spotted on five continents in the past few years, including Asia and Europe, and that it is operating a fleet of reconnaissance balloons.
In 1983, when the US-Soviet Cold War was intensifying, KAL007 was shot down by a small air force aircraft on the Kamchatka Peninsula. After the civil aircraft moored at a military facility near Washington in a fierce counterintelligence test, it entered the sky over Soviet air defense facilities in the course of flight to Korea. It occurred.<Reference to Manipulation of the Press in the 6th Republic, 1991>
The balloon incident between the US and China seems to have opened the possibility of 'shooting it down' over China and North Korea.