Balloon yields US and China actions and reactions in noisy week

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After the US Armed Forces shot down the Chinese balloon over American territory, China refused to talk to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

• The Pentagon said in a statement that Austin had asked to speak with Chinese National Defense Minister Wei Fenghe because he believed “in the importance of keeping lines of communication open.” The request was not granted;

• Beijing denies that the balloon carried spy equipment and even apologized for allegedly losing control of the object. He also accused the Americans of “overreacting” in the response.

On Tuesday, military teams stationed in South Carolina released photos of the recovery of part of the remains of the balloon after the shooting down. The National Security Council reported that the device was more than 60 meters high.

The Americans do not want to return the wreckage to the Chinese and will continue the search for possible parts that indicate the installation of spy equipment in the balloon.

Without mentioning the subject directly, President Joe Biden devoted a few minutes of the State of the Union speech – which updates Congress on the government’s achievements over the past year –, on Tuesday (7), to the case. He said he did not seek confrontation with China but was willing to “move quickly” to respond to sovereignty violations.

The speech was marked by applause from Democrats and Republicans, which exposed a rare unity in a night marked by boos from opponents of the president.

The media attention given to the case helped further deteriorate the Chinese-American dialogue, which led to the immediate cancellation of a visit by Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to Beijing scheduled for last weekend.

Why it matters: such incidents are uncommon, but are happening with increasing frequency due to growing distrust on both sides. In 2019, China also shot down a US balloon, and the operation gained cinematographic airs in the country’s press. The US claims that Beijing has been sending such devices into US airspace since the Trump administration.

what also matters

Chinese envoy to the European Union, Fu Cong, urged the West not to pursue the narrative of consolidating a “complete victory” for Ukraine against Russia, at the risk of escalation in war.

Guest at an event at the European Policy Center in Brussels, the ambassador said that China does not believe that “providing arms alone will solve the problem” and that “it is very concerned about the talk about achieving a complete victory on the battlefield”.

He stressed that he believes it is more productive to urge both parties to sit down to negotiate, as opposed to recent pledges by French and US leaders, Emmanuel Macron, and Joe Biden. The duo is more open to new financial and equipment transfers to Kiev to accelerate a possible resumption of territory by the Ukrainians.

China is the main export destination for 19 of the 27 federative entities in Brazil. The data was disclosed on Tuesday (7) by the Brazil-China Business Center, which conducted a study on Brazilian trade with state-by-state cuts.

The report showed that, although the scenario consolidates the Asian giant as the country’s most important partner, the diversity of products sold to Beijing has fallen.

• The study indicated concentration in a smaller number of products and pointed out 216 items with potential for exports;

• Examples listed include tobacco, cast iron, wood, gypsum stone, and leather;

• The conclusion is that the inclusion of these products would increase the turnover by approximately US$ 44.5 billion (R$ 234.3 billion) annually until 2030.

The publication was produced in partnership with the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and is available here.

keep an eye

China’s largest search engine, Baidu announced that it should complete the final tests of Ernie Bot next month, an artificial intelligence tool that should work as a competitor to ChatGPT. The name of the tool, which consolidates research in the area initiated by the company in 2019, is an acrostic for “Enhanced Representation Through Knowledge Integration”.

Unlike OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Ernie will be able to process simultaneous tasks, generate texts and convert written commands into images. Initially programmed to work in Chinese, the platform will be able to learn language patterns (and it shouldn’t take long for it to start expanding to other languages).

why does it matter: the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and the subsequent announcement by Microsoft —one of the project’s financiers— that it would integrate the technology into all of its products got the big techs moving.

• Artificial intelligence used to be taboo in the industry due to the structural difficulty in controlling its growth and accuracy, but the tool’s popularity has convinced CEOs that it’s time to explore this field;

• By entering the dispute, Baidu encouraged investors: the company’s shares rose 13% on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Monday (6).

to go deep

Brazilian researcher Paulo Menechelli holds an online lecture on Wednesday (22) about the Chinese film industry and its parallels with the projection of soft power in the country. The conversation will be hosted by the University of Virginia and details can be found here. (free, in English).