On January 24 2023, a large white high-altitude balloon entered North American airspace. Crossing over Alaska, Canada and then on to the United States (US), military officials quickly declared that it was carrying out surveillance for China, claims that escalated as the balloon headed towards Montana, home to one of the US’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
Analysts and politicians also took to the airwaves, arguing that the balloon was indicative of a second Cold War between China and the US, or that “make no mistake, … (it) was intentionally launched as a calculated show of force”.
Amid the crisis, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delayed a trip to Beijing – the first since 2018 – which was aimed at easing China-US tensions. On February 4 the balloon was shot down by the US Air Force over South Carolina with debris from the balloon being recovered a few days later to be analysed, with the results yet to be released. In response, the Chinese foreign ministry stated that the balloon was a civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research that had “deviated far from its planned course” because of winds. It furthermore noted how “the Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure” [i.e. an event that is entirely beyond one’s control].
From the perspective of US leaders, their fears are built upon a highly established “China Threat School”. This is a set of thinking within international relations that argues that, as China rises in international prominence, it will constitute a growing international danger, especially to US hegemony. It came into being in the early 1990s and postulates that China’s rapid economic growth and increasing military spending will probably lead to a Sino-US conflict. As shown by this latest crisis, it also acts as a crucial repository upon which suspicions between the two sides have gestated since the end of the Cold War.
These suspicions have been manifested in blossoming military, economic, diplomatic and technological competition between China and the US. That Chinese foreign policy is also often driven by a search for domestic stability, which focuses upon modernisation and development through economic growth, has further augmented this antagonism. Mixed up in these dynamics are other tensions and insecurities over status and position, and a common sensitivity to criticism. Ever-potent nationalist voices on both sides also add an emotional edge that is frequently based upon feelings – fear, insecurity, pride – rather than rational thought or assessment, as derived from data , facts and undisputed information.
Reactions to the balloon incursion have the potential to mirror other past incidents that eventually ended up being counter-intuitive to the US’s first instincts. One such example was the testing of the Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter aircraft. Carried out in January 2011, it coincided with a visit by US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates to President Hu Jintao in Beijing. The test was initially interpreted by the Pentagon as a coercive signal by China to pressure US officials in discussions, until it emerged that senior Chinese officials were not involved in the planning of aircraft development and were entirely oblivious to the test. What had been perceived as a sophisticated affront – as well as the apparent meaning and interpretation behind it – had thus actually turned out to be an accidental coincidence.
Donald Rumsfeld was much derided 21 years ago for his unwieldly pronouncement about links between the Iraqi government, weapons of mass destruction and terrorist groups. As he stated in a news briefing in February 2002, when analysing international affairs, “as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know”.
This frame of analysis – which is much used across the scientific and business worlds – is usefully indicative of the deeper misperceptions, fear and distrust at the heart of US-China relations, whereby pre-existing narratives are often projected onto events, regardless of the actual information at hand. These narratives – often perpetuated and accelerated by a rapid, if not at times rabid, 24 hour news environment – now quickly become the story.
Disconnected from the initial event, they also serve to unveil the core realities of contemporary international affairs. In this case, how a quickly rising power – in the guise of China – innately threatens the supremacy of the current dominant power – as represented by the US. As perception overturns reality, the balloon incident further reveals the fragility and negative orientation of current relations between Beijing and Washington. It also underlines how a crisis – whether real or perceived or more critically, misperceived – could quickly descend into either proxy or direct conflict between them.
The greatest unknown of all is when that would occur but the clearest known is that for certain US leaders and audiences, such an end is feared, if not desired.
Chris Ogden is Senior Lecturer in Asian Affairs at the University of St Andrews. For more information, see https://chris-ogden.org/
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Image credit: REUTERS via Alamy