As the balloon dispute between the US and China gets worse, the world is becoming more divided over how to handle this high-stakes dispute.
The latest exchange happened on Friday, when US President Joe Biden said he would “make no apologies” for shooting down the alleged Chinese spy balloon. After a few hours, the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs said that the US “can’t ask for dialogue while making things worse.”
China still says they didn’t send a spy balloon, even though the US keeps giving more information about the object to back up their claim.
But the way Beijing and Washington have reacted to each other has been closely looked at as the world tries to figure out what this means for national security and geopolitical stability.
Observers say that the end result is that it has hardened positions, made it harder for people to trust China or the US, and made it much harder for Washington and Beijing to come together.
Some people are more worried now about how far Chinese spies can go, and governments are scrambling to reevaluate what they know about China’s ability to spy.
This week, Japan, a key US ally, said that after re-examining past cases of UFOs, they “strongly suspect” that China has sent at least three spy balloons over their land since 2019.
Taiwanese officials who didn’t want to be named told the Financial Times that dozens of Chinese military balloons had been spying on the island. Taiwan is another US ally, and China claims the island as its own.
Later, Taiwan’s defence ministry said they had only seen Chinese weather balloons. On Friday, they found the remains of one of these objects. They also said they would not hesitate to shoot down any suspected military objects in their airspace.
“Before, people in other states didn’t know what to think, but now they do. So it shows that other countries don’t fully understand, and it’s not surprising that China has tried to take advantage of this “said Dr. Ian Chong, a scholar at Carnegie China who does not live there.
For those who believe the US claims, the incident shows how little people know about China’s ability to spy and how far Beijing would go to prove it.
Drew Thompson, a former US Department of Defense official and visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore, said, “It shows that the People’s Liberation Army thinks they can justify absolutely any technology and any mission, that they can do anything to increase China’s ability to project power, do surveillance, and put the US at risk.”
Mr. Thompson said that this was done “regardless of the effects on China’s reputation, its commitment to international law, and the benefits of acting with restraint.”