The balloon, which the US had tracked since its take-off from China’s Hainan island, is now thought to have been deflected off course by weather conditions. (Illustration by CR Sasikumar)
‘Floating a Balloon’, The Indian Express, 23 February 2023. p.13. Published online as ‘Spy balloons and China’s narrative war against America’s superpower status’.
Anthony Blinken and Wang Yi, top diplomats from the US and China respectively, finally met at the end of last week at the 59th Munich Security Conference after the former had cancelled his visit to Beijing earlier this month in the wake of the discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon in US airspace.
The Chinese first responded by expressing regrets over the incursion of what they called a weather balloon but later, following the US shooting down of the balloon, called the action “unthinkable and hysterical” and one which “clearly violates common practice and relevant international law”.