(Live Update) After the Spy Balloon Shut Down, War Between U.S. and China, No Longer Taiwan vs China, is very imminent.
Surprisingly (and this is scary) not feeling guilty. February 5th, 2.57 PM in Beijing (February 5th, 1.57 am in Washington DC), China’s defence ministry weighs in on the balloon incident. The Chinese side says the use of force by the US to attack its civilian unmanned airship is an “obvious overreaction” – with very transparent proof that this is for surveillance, spying purposes. China’s defence ministry also expresses solemn protest. Reserves the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations. U.S. military has shut down Chinese (assume) Spy Balloon off the Coast - Myrtle Beach. 2.38 pm ET February 4th, 2023.
U.S. Department of Defense officials (Pentagon officials) informed congressional officials on Saturday (February 4th, 2023) of previous incursions near/over Texas, Florida, Guam and Hawaii. In December 2022, the excursions of China's carrier battlegroup Liaoning, during the most recent exercise in the Western Pacific.
The carrier battlegroup came within 618 km northwest of Guam (Distance Beijing to Guam: 4,030 - 4,050 km). On Dec. 25 the Liaoning was spotted 670 km (416 miles) southeast of Okinotorishima, before returning to the waters between Taiwan and Japan. By 2025, China can muster a fleet, capable of deterring US naval activities in the Western Pacific. By 2025, China will have 3 carriers in service: Carrier 16 Liaoning, Carrier 17 Shandong, and Carrier 18 Fujian. Another important milestone around 2025, will be the introduction of J-35 carrier-based stealth fighter.
In 1957, China claimed to have shot down a U.S. Navy "spy" balloon that entered its airspace. The Navy said it was a weather experiment that had blown off course. The U.S. Navy doubted that the balloon had been shot down, believing it crashed and was then found by the Chinese.
Can you imagine the worst? After at least 79 hours in Canada and U.S. territory (don't forget Trudeau has had a heated exchange with Xi Jinping in Bali, G20 Summit — Indonesia as a Chairmanship G20 2022), China is not feeling guilty. Part of Canadian and American feeling of terror like the “Cuban missile” October 1962 (61 years ago) because the Chinese (assume launched & belonging by China) Spy Balloon, and China is not feeling guilty.
Biden knew China's spy balloon was in US airspace for nearly a WEEK but kept it secret - fearing Blinken's planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing would be derailed. Bloomberg reports that the White House kept the balloon’s presence under wraps for fear of derailing the Blinken trip to China (to meet President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Qin Gang), until local media in Billings Montana published a picture of it on Thursday afternoon.
Imagine it: actually only 1 step again the (re) harmonizing U.S. - China relation in Beijing with Blinken trip, but everything already burst in the air again, destroyed. From contrite to confrontational. China is not feeling guilty. GOP, from Speaker Kevin McCarthy very furious and angry why Biden waiting in days to shoot down the balloon. Republicans like McCarthy melt down over Biden’s waiting too long to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon, the DoD casually announces that 3 Chinese spy balloons came into the country during Trump’s presidency and he did nothing. DoD using sentences: “The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration.” Trump immediately denied it.
Because “gut”, a four-star Air Force General Michael A. “Mike” Minihan has told his officers to prepare for war with China within two years (2025), not 2026 like CSIS report - analysis / simulation, — instructing them to drill service members “with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most.” “I hope I am wrong,” Mike Minihan, head of the 50,000-member Air Mobility Command, wrote in the chilling Friday memo. “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”
The Department of Defense sought to downplay the memo. “These comments are not representative of the department’s view on China,” a spokesperson said. But Minihan, a 32-year Air Force veteran based at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, laid out his premise in terms of geopolitical logic, as tensions between China and Taiwan continue to mount.
Again, because “gut”, "U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns says Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the military to be ready to conduct an invasion of Taiwan by 2027, because of “Xi Jinping’s gut". 2027, 1 year longer from (prediction) CSIS (2026 war China - Taiwan).
In a leaked memo an American general reportedly said his “gut” told him the US and China would be at war in 2025. Xi Jinping’s gut say 2027. We’re now making policy on matters of life and death matter based on “gut” feelings? China v Taiwan (+ U.S. Japan etc) will cost US$ 14-16 Trillion, 8x times Russia - Ukraine war (now Day 347 war; February 5th, 2023).
US officials say they were able to block the balloon from gathering intel during its overflight of the US, while the US military was able to turn the tables, so to speak, to gather intel on the balloon itself and its equipment. Chinese surveillance balloons flew over the U.S. three times during the Trump administration, senior Pentagon officials said in a briefing today after a F-22 Fighter jet shot down the airship about 6 miles off the North Carolina coast. Trump already denied it.
F-22 Fighter aircraft from Langley AFB in Virginia fired a single missile into the Chinese surveillance balloon at 2:39pm today, causing it to crash into the ocean, says a senior defense official. This was the first air-to air strike by an F22 because the F-22 failed in Syria mission. The shootdown of the Chinese balloon was carried out by an F-22 Raptor from Joint Base Langley-Eustis, but with support from F-15s from Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield, Mass., according to a senior U.S. official. The Pentagon (Department of Defense) spent more than $300 billion on two stealth fighters, the F-22 program and the Joint Strike Fighter program.
Intelligence analysts distinguish between secrets and mysteries. The bizarre Chinese balloon overflight of the United States that ended with Saturday’s shoot-down over the Atlantic coast has elements of both.
The public spectacle of a spy balloon floating over America has been an embarrassment for the Biden administration, to be sure. But the administration can claim that it waited for the most opportune moment to destroy the balloon. Balloons have no heat signature so infrared-guided missiles won’t work. Radar guided missiles also appear to have problems because of the balloon’s movement. Will be fascinating to see how USAF eventually takes it down (which they will).
Biden on Friday (Feb 3rd, 2023) reminisced about his travels with Chinese President Xi Jinping after diplomats representing Xi at a summit meeting in Alaska delivered an anti-American diatribe and mocked Biden’s frequent claim to approach China from a “position of strength.”
Biden did not acknowledge the shockingly harsh Chinese attack and instead launched into reflections on his relationship with Xi during a trip to Atlanta.
“I was with Xi Jinping of China (*2011), spent more time with him I’m told than any world leader because he was vice president, I was vice president. His president and mine wanted us to get to know one another because it was clear he was going to become president,” Biden told staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I spent, traveled 17,000 miles with him in China and the United States and Asia generally, and met with him I guess they tell me 24-25 hours alone, just me and an interpreter and he and an interpreter.”
He joked: “And by the way, I handed in all my notes.”
Biden concluded with a story he frequently tells: “But all kidding aside, he asked me right on the Tibetan Plateau, he asked me, he said to me, ‘Can you define America for me?’ I said, ‘Yeah, one word. And I mean it. One word: possibilities’,” Biden said.
The president has not publicly acknowledged the withering verbal attack on his Secretary of State Tony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who did not walk out of the talks in Anchorage in response to the sharp words.
As he left the White House for the trip to Georgia on Friday, Biden said he was “very proud” of Blinken.
The Chinese diplomats publicly accused the US of hypocrisy on human rights, democratic values and cyber warfare.
Aboard Air Force One, White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre downplayed the struggle session, saying the Biden administration believes it was intended for a domestic Chinese audience.
“The United States delegation came to Anchorage committed to laying out the principles, interests and values that animate our engagement with Beijing knowing that exaggerated diplomatic presentations often are aimed at a domestic audience,” Jean-Pierre said.
Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi, former Chinese Foreign Minister (2013-2022, then replaced by Wang Yi, and now Qin Gang as Chinese FM) said at the Thursday opening (Feb 2nd, 2023) of the forum, “The United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” directly knocking Biden’s statements.
“Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States,” added Chinese former Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
“We believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world.”
Yang chided what he described as US hypocrisy on human rights and accused the US of being a “champion” of cyberattacks. He invoked the Black Lives Matter movement and said “the challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated.”
The US team appeared unprepared for the verbal assault.