China’s Message In a Balloon

STEVEN SPIELBERG’S 1982 SUPER HIT E.T. sparked a massive interest in extra-terrestrial intel­ligence and Hollywood’s interest peaked in a theme that was not new but seemed newly relevant. A pro­gramme to seek out life forms in the universe, SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence), launched at Berkeley several years later received wide support, particularly for an initiative to link personal computers with the internet for the search. The 1996 film Independence Day has the US president leading fighter jets to take on an evil alien ar­mada. In most ideation about UFOs (Unidentified Flying Ob­jects), the enemy was from outer space. Yet, recent headlines in the American media about UFOs being shot down were about man-made objects, and in the case of the Chinese balloon that drifted across continental America, there was no doubt about its earthly provenance.

The giant balloon that was about 200 feet high and as big as a bus contained motors to guide its flight, an antenna ar­ray and pods which the US said could be used for surveillance although China insisted it was a weather monitor that had drifted off course. The technical aspects of the balloon await the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) forensic examination, but its diplomatic and security implications are very evident. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled his visit to China and relations between Washington and Beijing, already rocked by considerable turbulence, further worsened. The eventual downing of the balloon off the coast of South Carolina marks new uncertainties which have a significant bearing on India’s security calculations and strategic deliberations.

Irrespective of its military use, the Chinese balloon has dis­played its escalatory potential and this is a cause for concern for India. Indian paramilitary and Army regularly shoot down drones from Pakistan used to ferry arms, money and drugs across the border. But so far, there has been no known case of a Chinese balloon drifting into Indian airspace, demanding a response from the government. In many ways, balloons can be low-cost intrusive options that mirror the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) poking and prodding along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The bitter and polarised state of government-opposition relations almost certainly means that action will be called for, failing which a security breach or failure will be alleged. The political debate invariably feeds public opinion and, unlike troop movements in remote areas along the LAC, a balloon can be a very visible object in the sky. Suddenly, in an era of drones and satellites, the humble balloon has made a flashy entry.

Though it appears like a blast from the past, commentators say balloons of varying sizes have a role to play in surveillance as they can operate in a zone that is above the reach of most mili­tary aircraft and below what is defined as the “edge of space”. Besides, balloons have the ability to float at much lower alti­tudes too and can, in the first instance, be mistaken for a benign object unless specifically identified and tagged as an intruder. “Their low speeds, ability to hover, make a quiet entry across borders and sophisticated lenses and computers can make bal­loons more effective spying devices than might be obvious,” said a former director general of military operations (DGMO). He pointed out that at higher altitudes, above ceilings of military aircraft, balloons have a utility different from orbiting satellites that can cover vast geographies but are less suited to pin-pointed observation. Balloons and Zeppelins were seen to be World War I relics. But festooned with modern gadgetry, balloons are potent threats, not the least as political weapons.

Senior US officials have refused to comment on the specifics of the Chinese balloon, other than stating that there are reasons to believe that it is more than a weather monitor. The reason for circumspection lies in China’s record of obfuscating the nature of its air and seaborne vessels and blurring the lines between ci­vilian and military. Chinese snoop ships, dressed up as oceano­graphic research vessels, have been regularly detected in the Indian Ocean. Australia has called out Chinese spy ships off its western coast and India has protested the docking of Yuan Wang 5 in Sri Lanka on similar grounds. In the East and South China seas, Chinese fishing fleets operate as military actors or a maritime militia, pushing Beijing’s economic claims and coercing fleets from ASEAN countries and Japan to vacate the area. China’s ac­tions are facing a pushback with Japan reversing some elements of its pacifist posture and others like Indonesia and Vietnam seeking new defence partners in the face of China’s dissimulation.

The use of balloons, whose military use is not immediately apparent, falls into “grey zone” tactics, defined as non-traditional methods that do not trigger armed conflict. These tactics disadvan­tage lesser powers that struggle to fashion a response and can prod bigger ones, like the US, into ac­tion that they might not be keen on. The use of multi-million dollar missiles to shoot down a balloon appears excessive and lends itself to sniggering memes but can be­come an unavoidable response as China’s tactics look to continually test an adversary’s response and ca­pabilities. As the balloon incident demonstrates, China was able to precipitate a high-profile show­down with the US that plays well to its domestic audience. It helps the communist regime to simultaneously paint the US as an aggressive power seeking to dominate China and show that a relatively low-tech device has been able to draw out an appar­ently disproportionate response from the Western superpower. It might suggest the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) need to control domestic narratives at a time when better relations with the US might well ease the strains on its economy.

THE INDIAN THINKING ON THE BALLOON developments sees the event as another likely Chinese play though its utility in mountainous regions of north India is unclear. Intrusions are liable to be detected and the con­tours of the land and weather conditions for most of the year make spying missions difficult and offer limited results. The likely political impact and the provocation offered by such an act is more the concern. Balloons may be the latest addition to a range of hostile acts that include cyberwar, disinformation, military pressure along the LAC, submarine forays into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and geo-economic projects like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that seeks to provide China access in all continents, but most particularly in Asia and Africa.

There are, however, diplomatic fallouts that China needs to consider. Though the telephonic talk between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi ostensibly took note of issues like the Air India-Boeing deal, its timing can still be seen to be significant coming in the wake of the balloon shooting and Blinken’s cancelled visit. All such actions on the part of China are bound to strengthen India-US cooperation and dilute areas of disagreement between the two nations. As a China watcher like former Foreign Secretary Vi­jay Gokhale has noted, China’s efforts to lower the heat on the borders with India and improve ties wax and wane with the per­ceived proximity between India and the US. It is a factor of a likely India-US axis rather than any rec­ognition of the need to normalise relations. Until the Modi govern­ment changed the playbook, iso­lating economic relations from border tensions suited China just fine as it kept India off-balance and increased the penetration of Chinese businesses.

In many ways, balloons can be low-cost intrusive options that mirror the PLA’s poking and prodding along the LAC. The bitter and polarised state of government-opposition relations almost certainly means that action will be called for, failing which a security breach or failure will be alleged

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Under President Xi Jinping, China is headed on an inexo­rable path of confrontation with the US and rival powers like India, Japan and Australia (besides showdowns with smaller neighbours), as it seeks “rejuvenation” of the Chinese nation. This is an all-encompassing national narrative and essential to maintaining CCP’s legitimacy as the arbiter of China’s destiny. The constant Chinese effort to demonstrate that it has a better ‘system’ than that of the democracies of the West, or of the ones like India, took a humiliating blow during Covid. Chinese nation­als discovered that their country was being viewed with suspicion after the initial cover-up of the Wuhan cases followed by the bul­lying of countries that supported an independent inquiry. Most embarrassing was the failure of prolonged shutdowns as part of the “zero Covid” policy that had to be finally abandoned in the face of visible public anger. Since mid-2022, when the world began to open up, Chinese citizens have been confined to China’s shores even as global tourism began to pick up pace.

Provocative acts like the balloon encounter help feed a re­surgent Chinese nationalism actively encouraged by CCP and keep the domestic discussion around the rivalry with the US and alleged conspiracies to contain China’s rise. The compulsions are likely to mount, especially as the Chinese economy goes through a delicate phase as the Covid infection stabilises. The sudden lifting of “zero Covid” might lead to the widespread im­munity the nation lacked although it would be at a steep price evidenced by overrun hospitals and death tolls that will never be revealed as only deaths due to respiratory failure are counted as having been caused by the pandemic. All these developments are troubling for Xi and are more than likely to lead to aggressive behaviour on the international stage.

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Rajeev Deshpande

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