This week, journalist Anna Swanson wrote an article for the New York Times entitled "U.S. Blacklists 6 Chinese Entities Involved in Spy Balloon Programs." In the article, Swanson discusses how the United States is responding to the supposed "weather balloon" which is now believed to be a Chinese spy balloon that flew over the U.S. last week. The balloon was eventually shot down on the coast of South Carolina after it had traveled a vast majority of the country.
In response, the Biden administration has listed 6 Chinese companies that are now heavily restricted in terms of selling parts to the United States. These companies include 5 Chinese companies as well one as one research institute that all specialize in airship military programs as well as balloons designed for recon and intelligence gathering. It is unclear at the time if these companies were directly involved with the balloon. The Biden administration also used diplomatic retaliation for the situation by canceling the secretary of state's trip to Beijing later this year.
Republicans argue that the Biden administration's stance was "too soft" to effectively reflect the magnitude of the situation. They also heavily critiqued Joe Biden for waiting until the balloon was out to the ocean to shoot it down. The White House's response was that due to the risk of a civilian potentially getting hit with the debris from the balloon, they choose to wait until there was no risk of it hitting anyone. The Chinese government's response to the situation has been to deny that the balloon was for surveillance purposes and instead insist that it was a weather balloon.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/business/economy/china-spy-balloon-sanctions.html
4 comments:
Great post, important topic. I think that the administration cutting off supply from 6 Chinese companies is a good thing to do politically and would make Americans feel protected. I wonder what the deeper meaning is behind the spy balloons. I think that the main purpose was for the Chinese to intimidate us and see how we would retaliate. I do think that our response was soft, but again the cost of creating a bigger issue can be catastrophic as the threat of a cyber attack is real. I've seen rumors about the Chinese being able to drop EMP bombs and wipe out internet systems, that could be what is behind the spying, but we will probably never really find out the truth.
I was actually thinking about writing about this topic myself due to the importance it has currently. Seeing how China is attempting to collect data through balloons feels almost like an insult as if we wouldn't find these balloons eventually and destroy them. I think the Biden administration did a good job handling the problem but if it continues I think more severe measures should be taken to prevent it from happening even more. The Biden administration seems to be dealing with a lot currently with this, including inflation problems, and what I wrote about, replacing economic leaders in the government. Overall this was a very informative post and was important to touch on.
This is a really interesting topic to cover. I think that this could be interpreted in a multitude of ways, but overall, I think it was wise for the Biden administration to shoot it down over the coast, and then continue the investigation of multiple Chinese corporations. In reality however, I dont think we would ever figure out what is truly going on in Chinese corporations, and how it would affect us -- so there is really no way of knowing through investigation. I see the Biden administration in the future struggling with wanting to keep the peace between the US and Chinese organizations, and also wanting to protect US citizens. So where will the Biden administration draw the line? I will be curious to see how this issue develops.
This is a really interesting argument because it's the idea of national security vs individual safety. The United States often views national security as one of the highest goals of the government, but we also place individualism extremely high as a society. By deciding to wait for the balloon to reach water before shooting it down, the safety of individuals was placed above national security, which in my mind seems like the right decision, but I recognize that the risk to national security may risk the lives of many more in the future. I am curious to see where the balloon passed by, however, because if the balloon was not recording anything other than day to day life in the US, I wonder what the real problem is?
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