A Brief History
On February 5, 2023, Americans were flooded with a variety of opinions about the Chinese “spy” balloon that had crossed much of the US and was shot down by a US fighter plane off the coast of South Carolina yesterday.
Digging Deeper
Some of the controversies concerning this event include:
Chinese outrage over US action against their alleged “weather balloon.”
China’s promise to “retaliate.”
Why did President Biden wait until the balloon was off the coast to shoot it down?
Why didn’t President Trump shoot down the three Chinese balloons that crossed the US during his administration?
What about the Chinese balloon currently flying above Latin America?
Question for students (and subscribers): Should the US shoot down all future Chinese balloons in US airspace?Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Noble, Jeff. Spy in the Sky: The Chinese Balloon Over Montana : Uncovering the Capabilities and Impacts of Chinese Surveillance Balloons. Kindle, 2023.
Sutter, Robert. US-China Relations: Perilous Past, Uncertain Present. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2022.
The featured image in this article, a map by M.Bitton showing the trajectory of the 2023 Chinese balloon, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
