China balloon shot down in US makes Xi Jinping leadership a target

The Chinese balloon that flew over the United States has raised numerous hypotheses about its real purpose.

But it also drew the world’s attention to the prospect that communications and control under the Xi Jinping regime and its celebrated security apparatus might not be as coherent — or even less functional — as the confident image projected by the Chinese leader suggests.

The interests at stake are very important. Relations between Washington and Beijing have strained, and competition between the two sides has intensified, fueling fears that one misstep could trigger an accidental clash between powerful rivals.

The US says the vehicle was a “high altitude spy balloon”. China claims it was a civilian aircraft that was collecting weather data and was blown off course by winds. Whether the inflatable balloon landed over the US by mistake or as the result of a blatant military maneuver, its emergence raises questions about China’s role in its growing position as a global power.

“Particularly damaging for China at the international and domestic level have been the questions this raises about competence and how it reinforces doubts about Xi Jinping’s leadership,” said Susan Shirk, a former deputy assistant secretary of state during the administration. Clinton and author of a recent book, “Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise.”

It is not clear to what extent the incident would have been preventable, but it came at a time when Xi is considered to be at the height of his power, having broken precedent last year by winning a third term and making national security one of the cornerstones of his government.

With the postponement of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing, Xi has missed an opportunity to resist the increasing pressure that Washington is putting on China through its security relationships with partners in Asia and the restrictions imposed on the technology of Chinese semiconductors. That would have allowed Xi to focus more attention on pressing domestic issues, such as injecting new life into the flagging national economy.

The balloon incident followed other apparent instances of miscalculations, including the random reversal of the sometimes suffocating Covid-zero measures after widespread protests, and after Xi struck a “no-holds-barred” partnership with Russia just weeks earlier. of the invasion of Ukraine.

“If you think about it, it’s really a paradox because we are at the beginning of Xi’s third term,” added Shirk. “He should be on a bullish streak. Yet we see all this negative feedback.”

Now, questions about the judgments of Xi and his military and intelligence services negatively affect conjectures about how China would handle another crisis in a much more dangerous situation, such as a crisis in the heavily militarized Taiwan Strait. It is an ominous scenario, given the great rivalry between Washington and Beijing, which raises the likelihood of a confrontation.

In the past, Shirk said, the Chinese regime “was able to flexibly adapt to a problem. It prioritized economic development. That hasn’t been the case under Xi Jinping in recent years. That means you can’t predict the future. It’s the reason why we all feel this is a much more dangerous situation.”

That unpredictability appears to have extended to the most recent Chinese response to the balloon, which was shot down on Saturday by a US military jet. Having initially said it regretted the balloon’s appearance, on Monday China hardened its stance.

Vice Chancellor Xie Feng filed a protest outside the US embassy in Beijing, criticizing the United States for destroying his aircraft and accusing Washington of reversing progress made in improving relations between the two countries after the face-to-face meeting between Xi and Joe Biden in Indonesia.

“China resolutely opposes and strongly protests against this. It urges the US not to take further actions that harm China’s interests and not to escalate or expand the pressure,” the foreign ministry said. Xie said Beijing reserves the right to respond as necessary.

Ignoring protests from Beijing, US Navy divers are scouring the sea off the coast of South Carolina to recover parts of the balloon. For China, the ill-timed flight of the balloon and its discovery flying over the US mainland suggest a lack of coordination between the Chinese military and other regime agencies, analysts say.

The incident “shows that the national security coordination process to prevent incidents like this is still not as functional as it needs to be,” said Drew Thompson, a visiting senior fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, as well as a former -American defense official.

Thompson said it’s possible the Chinese military orchestrated the incident, as they could benefit from heightened and sustained tension with the US. The spy balloons are believed to be operated by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force, which is also responsible for the nuclear and conventional missile arsenal. Taiwan’s military confirmed last year that balloons seen flying over the island were operated by the Rocket Force, but that they were likely being used for meteorological observations.

It would not be the first time that the Chinese military has caught other sectors of the regime off guard. In 2011, the PLA conducted the first test run of its new J-20 stealth jet, hours before a meeting in Beijing between US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and then-Chinese leader Hu Jintao. The flight was interpreted as an effort to undermine the visit, carried out to improve ties. Asked about the matter by Gates, Hu, a less powerful leader than Xi, appeared unaware of the test.

In another incident, this one in 2007, the chancellery refused for days to comment on another successful test of an anti-satellite missile conducted by the Rocket Force, then known as the Second Artillery Corps. The silence at the time highlighted the secrecy that surrounds the Chinese military, which only passed information about tests of this nature directly to Hu.

In all cases, the impossibility of scrutinizing China’s thinking, something that was exacerbated by the growing climate of distrust between Washington and Beijing, only heightened the sense of volatility in the relationship.

“What the balloon incident totally reinforces is the complete lack of transparency in the Chinese decision-making process,” Thompson said. “This is not a problem with their system, but one of its fundamental characteristics. And it will happen again. If events move too fast, the government does not have agile decision-making structures. It cannot communicate effectively during a rapidly evolving crisis. This really bodes ill for the efforts being undertaken now with China.”