Other shady moves have challenged American analysts trying to read China’s intentions. US officials said on January 28, when the balloon approached the Aleutian Islands and US airspace over Alaska on a wrong trajectory, the balloon’s self-destruct function did not activate. Chinese operators may not want to destroy the balloon; it could also be that they tried to activate the self-destruct mechanism and failed.
Chinese spy’s hot air balloon duel
The discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon floating over the United States has increased tensions between the two superpowers.
Operators or officials may have miscalculated the wind direction and thought ocean currents would send the balloon quickly over Alaska and out of U.S. airspace to the Arctic Ocean. Or they may have decided to allow the balloon to keep moving forward to see what kinds of intelligence it could gather — without anticipating the political and diplomatic turmoil that would ensue. after the balloon drifted with the wind to the continental United States.
Some US officials say they know the expected trajectory of the spy balloon in part because the US government has been tracking the balloon since it launched in late January from Hainan Island in the South China Sea. South China, a detail First reported on Monday by The New York Times, and observed it as it moved across the Pacific Ocean. U.S. agencies also tracked the balloon as it was pushed in different directions by the wind, officials said.
When the balloon veered off course, as suspected by US officials, Chinese officials and machine operators, who may have been employees of a civilian-run hot air balloon manufacturer under contract, with China’s People’s Liberation Army, seems to have made a series of bad decisions.
Chinese executives and officials did not take any immediate action after two top US diplomats, Antony J. Blinken, secretary of state, and Wendy Sherman, deputy secretary of state, made the decision. official appointment to a senior Chinese diplomat, Zhu Haiquan, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at around 6:30 p.m. on February 1 in a hot air balloon, to tell him that his government must do something with it. US officials said Mr. Zhu appeared surprised.
More than 24 hours later, and half a day after the Pentagon announced the existence of the balloon, Chinese Foreign Ministry officials in Beijing spoke privately with diplomats at the US Embassy. to tell them that the balloon was a harmless civilian machine that had gone astray. .
What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What is their motivation to tell us? Have they proven reliable in the past? Can we verify the information? Even after satisfying these questions, The Times still uses anonymous sources as a last resort. Reporters and at least one editor know the identity of the source.
Later that Friday, February 3, after China released a public statement expressing regret and after Mr. Blinken canceled a planned weekend visit to BeijingThe balloon appeared to be accelerating, US officials said.
