If we flew balloons in their airspace we would fully expect them to shoot them down as well, as would any nation in their right mind, like Iran did with one of our drones in 2019. Don't want it swatted out of the sky? Keep it out of our airspace.
If China sees this as retaliation for something Schumer said and they think this is the best way to respond and squander their resources then let them have at it. IMO we should be showing a strong and unified front as we give them the collective middle finger with all the other sovereign nations standing up against it as well.
I don't think Schumer's choice of phrasing was at all appropriate. We don't need gotcha hyperpartisan language feeding the media frenzy around this series of balloon discoveries. I'm pretty sure there's more to this story than will or can particularly soon meet public understanding... and so that only means there will be plenty opportunity for the public to take exception to whatever the media feed us.
In particular, regarding the word "humiliation": much has formally been made, and I mean historically, and by China itself, of China's perceived and actual humiliation in the 19th century, when there were multiple foreign powers homing in on what they saw as prime territory for exploitation versus weakening Chinese dynasties.
In fact the Chinese themselves, as their nationalism rose in the early 20th century, did characterize their turf with maps actually labeled "the map of humiliation," showing the regions controlled either then or in the 19th century by, variously, British, Japanese, American, French and other European interests. The "map of humiliation" was included as part of Chinese nationalists' call for a domestic movement to put an end to all that foreign exploitation.
So the very word "humiliation" has a special and lingering connotation to China from only about a hundred years ago. It's a connotation that I don't think is in our own interests in the USA to resurrect. We do better with each other when we keep the focus on trying to resolve political differences diplomatically and otherwise maintain a competitive economic partnership within the loop of world trade protocols that both nations are signed onto.
Last year our bilateral trade with China wrapped up at $690 billion, and now that covid is receding enough to permit it, American CEOs are resuming visits to China and surely also sitting down with Congress critters to remind them that we have not only a department of defense but a department of commerce.
We need China. China needs us. Our two populations do both benefit from the supply chain and export arrangements now for decades. Both countries' governments and military leaders do know that. And they should both quit messing around trying to prove they can approach critical mass of a blow-up without going there.
I don't have a problem with re-balancing some aspects of the USA's supply chain to better serve actual interests of the USA, instead of just the bottom lines of behemoth corporations trying to beat down labor costs, but I very much dislike all the drum beating that escalates tensions between the two countries.
There are tradeoffs in everything. China and the USA should be cooperating in trying making the planet safer and more prosperous for all our citizens. Instead we're hurling insults at each other and amping up hostile maneuvers in and around each other's turf. I expect better de-escalation efforts from Biden, better from the majority leader of the US Senate. The prez and Chuck Schumer are both starting to talk like neocon House candidates on the campaign trail. This is not that season. Maybe they should let Blinken and his counterpart in China do the talking behind closed doors for awhile, and draw in the backchannel military counterparts from both countries too. Chew the fat and toast some marshmallows.
And of course China should quit shipping balloons into the winds that fetch them into our airspace. But they're not going to be motivated to do that when Schumer brings up the loaded topic of "humiliation."
www.cnn.com
