China’s balloon blunder may play right into Joe Biden’s hands

Editorial: The US secretary of state has postponed his visit to Beijing, but should reschedule it as quickly as possible

The US has accused China of an ‘unacceptable’ violation of its sovereign airspace (AP)

The first chapter of the Chinese spy balloon saga has come to an end with the rogue airship being shot down by US forces over the sea off the US Atlantic coast. The Chinese government insisted that the balloon was a civilian meteorological probe blown astray by the wind, while the US government says it believes it was intended for surveillance.

The situation is embarrassing without being humiliating for both sides. Beijing has had to admit that it was a Chinese balloon, and is trying to de-escalate the war of words about it. That another balloon seems to be on the loose over an unspecified country in South America seems to lend credibility to the Chinese account that these are airships “with limited self-steering capability”.

Washington looks as if it has been spooked by the equivalent of a children’s toy – it seems unlikely that a balloon could do any spying that couldn’t be done from a low-altitude satellite – while the US president, Joe Biden, has been criticised once again by his Republican opponents for being “soft on China”.