In November, 700 Intercontinental Weapons Were Launched Against the USA?

Considering the waviness of the jet stream, northwest and southwest could also work, depending on the weather patterns of the week.

From those mentioned wikipedia pages about when we did this to China and the Soviet Union, launch points included Norway, Germany, and Turkey. And from ships. Some of the same series of balloons were also launched from the U.S., though I couldn't tell if any of those were meant for such distant targets instead of just weather matters on our own continent.

 

This could have been true in November, but not now.

 

THIS IS A DISGRACE!!!!

I have seen lots of anti-China propaganda across US media and in US chatrooms. There's no shortage of anti-China slurs, and more often than not I sigh and let them slide, putting them down to ignorance, wilful or otherwise.

BUT THIS IS A MALICIOUS SLUR.

CHINA IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR KANYE WEST. HE IS AMERICA'S FAULT.

Yes, during the time when he claimed to be growing up in "The Hood" he was actually living in Nanjing University when his mother taught there, and this was at an age that could be formative for many.

But the whole being an utter bell-end who ruined American male rap forever thing happened AFTER THAT, when he lived in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Sometimes a country needs to own its mistakes.

Own Ye, America. He's yours.

 

I suspect quite the opposite.

China is very keen for a peaceful resolution to US-China tensions. In particular, China is quite concerned about the whole "dual circulation" thing, with America keen to create a world in which there are two separate technology spheres, and countries can choose either to use Chinese tech or American tech but not both. This kicked off with things like Huawei and is continuing with various restrictions on chip sales and other tech exports. China wants this to stop, and sees diplomacy as the way of stopping. Many hawks in the US, on both sides of politics, want it to continue, and don't want talks. This was a convenient excuse for the US to pull out of talks that many in the US government didn't want, without losing face and being seen as the bad guy by the international community.

Those US hawks have something to gain from any increase in tensions from this incident. Almost no-one in China does.

 

I've observed the same, and I take it as both an accusation that a lot of Chinese technology has been built with security back-doors to benefit Chinese interests, and an equally loud admission that American technology has the same compromised security but for American interests. Plenty of historical evidence of both, so honestly I think both nations are best served by using their own.

The real fight is about what to sell to the Swiss, Australia and the Canadians etc... economies that need to import certain tech and have the $£¥€ to pay for it. (and of course within that, who gets to spy on them)

It would appear that U.S. pressure got TSMC to house their newest generation of production gear in Arizona to keep it out of Taiwan. That's in addition to restricting sales of the snazzy new chips out of it.

 

I've always found that bit particularly funny.

"They're definitely putting back doors into their tech."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because that's what we do. Oh, s--t. I wasn't supposed to say that."

This is the problem. China - and the rest of the world - wants everyone to be able to buy whatever is the best product for the job, and get some stuff from the US, some from China, some from Taiwan, some from Japan and some from South Korea. They want, for example, Chinese consumer products that contain American chips. Only one country is opposed to this model. If it succeeds, it'll make everything more expensive and less efficient.

Perhaps more significantly, US policy is driving China to engage in technological development - such as work toward EUV lithography - that it probably wouldn't have bothered with otherwise. US policy aimed at holding China back is now the single biggest driver of China's push toward technological development.

It did initially. But, in part because the US and Arizona governments seem to be reneging on many of their promises of subsidies, and partly because of TSMC's concerns over export restrictions from a US factory, TSMC seems to now be significantly downscaling its Arizona plans. It already seems likely that they won't put 3nm-and-below tech into Arizona.

 

I think you have too much faith in communists, xi in particular.
But I don’t see Biden as a hawk

 

Biden isn't particularly hawkish. But much of his Defence Department is.

As for the faith thing... It's not about whether they're good or bad. It's about whether they are acting in their own interests. What you're suggesting would not be in China's interest. It would be in the interests of US hawks. It would be contrary to what China wants, not because China is looking for what's best for the world or the most moral outcome, but because China is looking for what's best for China. With the occasional obvious exception (Britain!), countries don't actively do stuff that they know is detrimental to their own interests.

In this case, all this speculation about what they're definitely doing with what is definitely a spy balloon ignores possible motivations and deterrents for doing this. It's also worth noting that all this speculation about what they're definitely doing with what is definitely a spy balloon is something we're really only seeing in US media. In the rest of the world, it's being called an "alleged surveillance balloon" or something. No-one other than the American media is saying that it's definitely a surveillance balloon, or that it's definitely there deliberately. That's an American thing.

 

this seems like a good article, other than we popped the balloon:

No Need to Pop This Balloon

 

"Own Ye, America."

Now I know more than I wished to about Mr. Ye. Do readers here know about time spent by Xi Jinping in Iowa doing agricultural research? Now there's a flip side for ye.

==
To sum up before this gets moved to 'that other group':

This is an implausibly deniable 'poke in the eye', oddly timed to mess with A. Blinken's diplomatic visit to balloon land.

Whatever its intel capabilities were, those were small compared to other stratosphere-level platforms that may be being used domestically and over nearby oceans and islands of interest. Explored by 'TheDrive' and seemingly not many other places.

There may be outrage here about such Intel sniffing. Have at it. If done in blissful ignorance of IMSI cellphone dirtbags and 'persistent surveillance' within US, may your bliss continue.

--
It is completely feasible for US to send Balloony McBalloonface across Asia. Launch sites are not a problem. Cross Russia first? more like a feature than a bug. I do not expect it. Not all countries poke eyes in quite the same way though.

 

I am too cheap to pay for this article. But the standfirst and the opening paragraphs make a lot of sense. If we're not going to talk, then spying on each other is the next-best thing to avoid misunderstandings and pointless wars.

I remain to be convinced that this is what it was though. Of course, the US military will "find" debris that "proves" that it was a spy balloon. But as far as reality is concerned, I really have my doubts. There are just better ways to do it.

 

He really is an unspeakable, talentless bell-end.

I've always felt that this was important. There's nothing like spending time in a country to gain an understanding of and respect for it.

I'm not sure it needs to be.

Indeed. If only there were some way other than using highly-visible hard-to-control balloons to collect aerial intelligence. In other news, I am very much looking forward to the end of The Great War. My hope is that this damned battle in the Somme will be over soon.

 

It frickin' was, Kitty.

Atypically I appeal to your knowledge of my knowledge of how to conduct meteorological research. There is no need for a 10 to 20 meter structure for that, besides the photovoltaic panel other structure. Which BTW would have supplied vastly more kilowatts than science(or beloved) would have needed.

 

Even then, was it supposed to go where it went?

I'm not saying it definitely wasn't everything the Americans claim it to be. I'm just saying it's highly unlikely that senior people in the Chinese government would have approved sending a surveillance balloon to the US now, of all times. It's contrary to China's interest. The Chinese government occasionally does stupid stuff, but this seems far too stupid.

 

if they say it was, and you don't believe them, how can we know?

 

That's kind of the point. We can't.

But a lot of Americans tend to believe what their government tells them, especially if it's about what foreigners are doing. So it really doesn't matter whether it's true or not.

 

but now you're sounding like an anti vaxxer, or election denier

 

True.

But it's a lot easier to lie about a single thing you've shot down off the coast and kept secret than it is to lie about a massively-tested, multi-organisation vaccine rollout, or an election with millions of witnesses.

 

it's actually pretty easy to lie about all of them, from what i've witnessed.

unfortunately, we all have our biases

 

And the lies are sometimes so blatant that it can undermine one's faith in what you're being told about the rest of the world. But because of limited exposure to the rest of the world, it's easy to just make s--t up.

I remember a few years ago, on June 3. I can't remember which year. But it was coming up to the anniversary of June 4 (which happens just after June 3 most years). I was watching CNN. There was a reporter in Beijing, saying that this was a very sensitive time because of the upcoming anniversary, and that access to foreign media had been cut off. She said, "Even in international hotels, the satellite feed to international news channels like BBC and CNN has been shut down. No-one in China can see this broadcast." I have to admit that, watching this in my hotel room in Guangzhou, I was mildly surprised to hear this.