>

Taiwan is smart, they know true reality if China, if only world leaders saw the chunky communist party for the two faced losers they are and cut them off bit by bit. Fuck China.
That's exactly right. I'm not sure what the pushback on this issue is? To me, it is plain and simple; they violated airspace, and could not retract the vehicle. Accident or not, it should be removed so it does not continue to violate the airspace. The move to wait for it over the water was to avoid collateral damage. 
I'm not sure what the controversy here is, aside from China crying foul. >

Theres no way you can spin it's presence in US airspace as accidental when the ground track plastered all over the news literally took it precisely over 2 US nuclear missile silo fields and Missouri where the B-2 is based. >

The balloon is unpowered, so I’m actually quite impressed that they managed to use the natural wind to make it fly over military bases precisely.
EDIT: By “unpowered” I was talking as an aviation term, which means the balloon is not primarily moved by a jet engine or a propeller. It may have propellers for course correction though as someone pointed out.
The power supply for the equipment is not what I was thinking about. >

They’re testing the water to see how the US reacts. >

That's secondary to the primary mission it had. The balloon had a gigantic payload of sensors and probably other equipment. It was so large that it could have, for example, been the largest ground-penetrating radar in the world. It could have analyzed all of the EM communications going on in order to analyze US communication networks to better understand them so that they can be hacked or jammed in the future.
There are a lot of things the balloon could accomplish that Chinese satellites could not. >

Now the question is if the US jammed the sensors so it couldn’t get/send the data it was collecting. >

Supposedly there were AWACS jets circling it all week jamming and/or listening to everything it was trying to transmit back to China.
I really don't think we would've let it fly over half the country if we didn't have reason to. It's not like it was difficult to shoot it down in the end, and if it was doing any real harm to us, we would've popped it over NYC if we had to. >

If collateral damage were the only reason they waited to down it, they could have just downed it over bumfucknowhere Alaska anyway. >

How about balloon wars? Each balloon gets fitted with a 6’ pokey thing that can pop the others. >

All those hours of Nintendo Balloon Fight finally pays off. >

You have been chosen as a champion to represent your country, are you ready? >

I feel like they only shot the balloon down due to the public making a massive fuss. Three of these flew over the USA during the Trump administration, and whilst I can't speak for his competence, I doubt Pentagon officials would have let it slide if it was actually anything to worry about. >

Yeah that's exactly what happened. The DOD doesn't really even give a shit about these things. Only had to react when the public found out and made a big deal out of it. >

The fact america bothered to shoot one down means ya done fucked up. >

It aint cheap to shoot either >

An Aim-9X (the missile used against the balloon) costs approximately 300k USD >

Brb, selling my home for a single AIM-9X. >

I don’t think you can live in it >

Who said anything about living? >

It's all about inserting. >

Seeker growl tone intensifies >

FOX TWO
good boy >

I haven't seen people this excited about a balloon since balloon boy. >

Balloon boy was way better. >

This whole incident is the weirdest song and dance by everyone involved. The US and allies have to pretend to be angry that China is spying on us (no one is actually surprised though) and China has to pretend to be angry that we shot down their "legitimate research" balloon, when we all know that the US is absolutely also spying on China and they would totally shoot down and/or disable our planes and satellites spying on them if they could. It would be much more shocking to learn that either or neither China or the US were spying/trying to spy on each other. >

yep, and it's weirder to see the feigned “anger” on the threads, even weirder to see the actual real enraged comments. almost like I'm dreaming. >

A lot are probably fake, if you think about it. Reddit has a huge spam bot problem. Sometimes you can't even tell because they just copy/paste 99% of a (presumed) real person's comments and posts, but insert spam in between so if you glance at the profile it looks real. Sounds like a huge conspiracy but if you google "buying reddit accounts", it's a huge thing with multiple marketplaces. Mostly for advertising, I thought, but... who knows when it comes to politics. >

What does a balloon get you that just flying around in a chartered jet wouldn't get you? It is not like US airspace is very restricted. It isn't like we are the Soviet Union in the 1950's. >

There are special used airspace that prohibits flights. A balloon can “drift” into it with the owner saying oops, not so much with powered flights >

And also the speed. By being a balloon it travels slower and in turn could potentially get more data than a faster moving object, but each have advantages and disadvantages depending on the circumstances. >

Oh boy the war hawks are flying high today yall. >

If China was a better country without border/territorial disputes balloons wouldn't matter. But since they regularly poke their neighbors like this as a means to manipulate and exert control over them, it is reasonable to use violence to stop it. China could get the west to shut up immediately if they wrote off Taiwan and redeployed their internal forces in ways that doesn't annoy Korea or Japan. They could do this entirely independently of the US and it'd severely harm US influence in the region, which would save them in their real struggle for influence in the South Pacific especially the Philippines, Vietnam and the Solomon Islands.
To use a direct analogy with the US: if the US stopped harassing Cuba with comparable deployments in Florida and the Gulf, people like Maduro, Lula and AMLO would receive Biden's diplomacy better. >

You know Canada and USA also have border disputes right? It's quite a normal thing around the world. >

All Border disputes are not Equal. Canada and Denmark's border dispute involved leaving alcohol. Russia and Ukraine's border dispute involves guns and missiles. Chinas involves ramming ships, which is nothing like the US and Canadas disputes. >

FYI, Canada and Denmark's border dispute has been resolved. We split Hans Island in two.
So Canada now has a land border with Europe. >

Which is a shame, where are they supposed to get free booze from now? >

Well we DO have a land border with Denmark. >

NK and Iran waste time and money on ICBMs when all it takes is balloon and knowledge of jet streams! >

As if this balloon incident is something new?
This shit has been happening for years.
The only thing that made this one different was media awareness
This is juat Taiwan reminding everyone how shitty China is, but the rest of the world already knows.
Too bad we invested all our manufacturing in China and have to play nice with them because  $$$$ >


The only thing that made this one different was media awareness

When and where did the other balloons fly over the US?  I see this being claimed... but where is the proof?  Hundreds of thousands of people were physically able to see this balloon but the balloons that flew over the US during Trump were what?  Invisible? >

If you can’t be bothered to read news articles you really shouldn’t be pretending to have an opinion. You can google just as well as anyone else. >

I did google.  There is no results that state where and when over the US they were seen. >

Because sometimes things are classified. If we put up paths and dates and times of everything we may reveal holes in our defenses to China. If you google it Forbes has an article that quotes the pentagon’s spokesperson. Typically if you don’t get concrete dates it’s for a reason >

As I said before, this balloon was visibly seen by hundreds of thousands of people... yet these other balloons flew over the US and were NEVER spotted by a single person outside of the government?  You seriously believe that? >

Use your common-sense for gods sake! So many complete idiots, just don't stop and think for two seconds! 
How one earth are hundreds of thousands of people going to see a balloon that's 60000 feet in the air? You can barely see a huge jumbo-jet at 20k feet, let alone a balloon a meter or so across at three times that altitude >

1 meter across? >

Even if two, three meters across you just can't see it with the naked eye
For reference a 747 is 72 meters long, more than twenty times the size
Again, basic mathematics is pretty helpful in life - Especially in filtering out bulls**t >

It has the size of 3 school buses according to sources. 
Basic research makes your “basic” math obsolete. >

Also it appeared to travel over the interior of Alaska, where there are important military bases. Likely spied on them too. >

The CCP can take a flying fuck at a donut. If they can't control their spy shit and it wanders over someone's territory, it deserves to get shot down. The fact that two happened at the same time on different continents just underscores the lie by china. >


can take a flying fuckbat a donut.

what >

I think the b is accidental >

Even then, what? >

Fuckat a donut. >

I think other countries should start sending balloons to China. See how they respond. I mean, you don't have to put anything in the balloons, just mess with them! >

Does anyone actually have (know), the exact path the balloon traveled? >

As it came into the CONUS, it lingered for a day or so over the Malstrom Air Force Base. Which is home to a major nuclear missile field. Then it changed altitude, caught the jet stream and moved down to near Kansas City and very close to Whiteman AFB, home to the B2 bombers. This is two important pieces of the "Nuclear Triad" of deterrence. The only piece missing would have been a submarine base. >

I guess that explains the rubber ducky that's been floating around King's Bay. >

I hope everyone is seeing the path where China, Russia, Iran, Belarus and “half of African countries which have been bought/obligated by China investment money” are turning step by step towards some kind of “Axis” forces. 
I truly hope I’m wrong but get ready for 2024. >

Well, fortunately, you're wrong. China and Russia kind of quietly hate one another, and China has nothing to gain by turning towards Russia and against the west. The economy would collapse overnight. >

You obviously don’t know about BRICS. >

You obviously don’t know about BRICS.
BRICS is nothing like NATO. It's just an umbrella term for a couple of large countries. Both China and India are in BRICS. They have frequent border skirmishes and hate each other more than anybody else in the world. >

And both countries are helping Russia currently. >

Brazil is groovey now though >

Goes without saying but a lot of shit committed by the CCP shouldn’t be tolerated. Take the persecution of Uyghurs for example. They’re really starting to push the limits of what the rest of the world will let them get away with. That’s an actual genocide happening here and now in the modern age. Anyone with a soul would look at shit like that and know they shouldn’t be left alone to do as they please. 
But they will. It’s what comes with being the one of the most powerful economies on the planet. It’s like having a rich friend who’s a completely disgusting abusive POS. Can’t upset them otherwise you won’t reap the benefits. So everyone turns a blind eye. Hell in the exact same way, the US knew about the persecution and concentration camps for Jewish prisoners during WW2 yet didn’t lift a finger until Pearl Harbour hit them. And the same is happening. There hasn’t (and probably won’t be) a “Pearl harbour moment” so they’ll just let this happen, because the rich are benefitting, so who cares about anything else? It doesn’t matter if it’s drenched in fresh blood, money is money to these bastards. Just watch. Within a month or so, this’ll be water under the bridge. >

No, it's about; are you going to cross Chinese borders to stop them?  Were you going to cross German borders in 193whatever to stop them?  No doubt economic ties are part of any equation, but how often do you want to go to war?  How often do you go to war, against one party, on behalf of another party?  How far are you willing to go to help some small % of the human population?  What are you willing to risk for, say, 1m people? >

I honestly do think that if China invades Taiwan, the US would 100% get directly involved in some way. Like I could imagine us intentionally intercepting by placing ourselves in China's way and saying "if you cross by force, you're gambling the entire planet away". 100% guarantee that China isn't going to directly attack the US if we physically put ourselves literally in the middle of the Taiwan Strait.
If we get any advance notice, China is boned. They're not invading anyone. They would need to do it completely in the dark without any obvious tells, which would be damn near physically impossible unless they have literal invisibility cloaks. >

Maybe.  Maybe not.  You'd think the US would do so, but if there was a chance of things getting to an existential level event, would the US go all in?  Again, possibly, because of economic reasons, political reasons, etc, but nobody knows for sure.  Even with Russia/Ukraine, the US/NATO is trying to make sure everyone knows its not at war with Russia, despite sending in all the money and weapons.
But the main argument was about the terrible things the CCP does within China.  Are you going to cross Chinese borders militarily to make them stop doing what they're doing to a portion of their population, or their entire population, in the name of humanitarianism?
That's what war is ultimately about though.  If I do this, what will you do?  Will you blindly follow whatever treaty you have, or will you take a second to think?  If for some reason Russia chose to attack one of the Baltic states, would NATO stand together?  NATO has never been truly tested like that.  Would WW3 start over Lithuania? >

I'd ask people to be a little skeptical of all the propaganda proliferating that attempts to downplay the significance or the threat of the balloon. A common strategy on reddit for example is for numerous shady accounts to chime in and argue that because satellites exist, nothing could be gained by a Chinese balloon flying over US nuclear installations. That China did nothing wrong etc...
There are a lot of things an aircraft, whether it's fixed-wing or a balloon, can do that satellites can't. Every major military in the world, that also operates satellites, has intelligence-gathering aircraft that have capabilities that satellites don't have. Supposedly all of these are obsolete and useless because "satellites exist". But that is not the case, they are hugely important and potent ways to gain intelligence and also to conduct electronic warfare.
The balloon had a gigantic payload, a large array of sensors and who knows what else. It loitered over sensitive areas, and then maneuvered and B-lined to other sensitive areas. It flew and loitered directly over the largest American ICBM base, after having flown by the US missile defense installations in Alaska, and then it went on to fly over other important military bases on the east coast before heading over water.
It was obviously doing something that China's satellites don't have the capacity to do. The payload under the balloon was so large that it could have had the most powerful airborne, ground-penetrating radar array in the world, for example. It could have analyzed basically every EM communication going on in the US, both civilian and military, that satellites absolutely cannot do as effectively.
Every time there's a story involving China, there's a major, inorganic campaign in the media and on social media to warp the facts and distract and obfuscate the details. People need to not be lulled by the jokes and the silliness going on. This is a big deal.
This was nothing short of one of the most aggressive, dangerous escalations of tensions between the US and China in the history of our relationship, and the damage done to national security might be incalculable. >


This was nothing short of one of the most aggressive, dangerous escalations of tensions between the US and China in the history of our relationship, and the damage done to national security might be incalculable. 

Umm you do realize this is not even remotely the first time a chinese spy balloon flew over US? >

Left-wing obfuscation. 
China had balloons that flew BY Hawaii, not over ICBM silos in the middle of the US. The news articles that keep going around trying to downplay what happened keep acting like this exact scenario has happened before, it hasn't. No Chinese balloon has ever flown straight through the US heartland like this. It flew over the MOST SENSITIVE military sites in the entire US. >

Thanks for bringing sense into the conversation. Sorry people are not seeing your point.
The balloon is a very serious threat. >

Imagine being scared by a balloon >

Granted, what else would Taiwan say? Let China do whatever they want? Sounds like this was the only possible reaction. >

China: The US is breaking international rules. 
Taiwan: China is breaking international law.
Wendy’s: Sir, this is a Wendy’s. >

Taiwan should not tolerate similar events. Even collecting meterology data it can be used by military. >

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 69%. (I'm a bot)


Taiwan said that the suspected Chinese spy balloon that was flying over the U.S. "Should not be tolerated by the civilized international community," adding that Beijing should stop conduct that causes regional instability.
Anti-TikTok pressure is bipartisan and mounting in Congress US works to recover debris, intel from downed Chinese 'spy' balloon.
The revelation of the Chinese balloon floating over U.S. territory was met with calls from Republican lawmakers for the Biden administration to act quickly to shoot it down.


Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: balloon^#1 US^#2 Chinese^#3 over^#4 down^#5 >

This just feels like a provocation. What could a weather balloon give them that satellites and TikTok can’t? >

That ought to piss the CCP nicely, you know because they “own” Taiwan. >

Neither should the secret police stations, or Chinese consulate workers attacking protesters, but noone seems to be stopping these things. >

First covid now balloons what will we tolerate next 😩 >

Has anyone actually 100% confirmed that these were spy balloons and not weather balloons yet? >

So does anyone know what these actually do? Everybody seems to have an opinion about everything else. WHAT DO THE BALLOONS DO?? >

Float >

The fact that we do business with China at all should be frightening. 
For the longest time we straight leaked innovation to them to bring them up to speed. To say thanks they started taking more than they were legally entitled by reverse engineering and copying products. Not content to stop there they bar anyone from doing business in the country unless they have an agreement with a Chinese business. They also prevent their citizens from freely accessing any point of views not authorized by the country and renege on agreements with territories (ie hong Kong). 
China are the bad guys. There is no reason we should continue doing business. We need to start phasing out that business and move it elsewhere (Africa? LATAM?) To continue the present course is to empower an adversary. So either they come to the light and compete fairly and without games of aggression like the balloon stunt and prefacing every diplomatic meeting with their untouchable terms. Or they get cut out like Russia. >

That’s a silly imperialist narrative you’ve bought into. It’s very ignorant of history and global geopolitics.
You speak as if IP theft is somehow a Chinese problem, when the US stole most of its early technologies from Europe. Japan, Korea and Taiwan all were at some point in their development accused of the same things as China. It’s a fundamental fact that developing countries will reverse engineer existing technology, because IP laws don’t exist across countries.
You also speak as if the world works for you, thinking you can just get Africans or Latin Americans to do you work if you get sick of the Chinese. China’s economic policies are the way they are because they saw how Western capitalists plundered Africa, the Western owned companies worked Africans to death and took the profits overseas. China’s military policies are due to the actions of the US in Latin America, just look up Wikipedia on “United States involvement in regime change” and “Foreign intervention by the United States”. Even Hong Kong was literally colonised by Britain because they invaded when China tried to stop them from selling opium to Chinese people.
Sitting on a high horse and calling China bad guys is about as ignorant as asking why Africans don’t just work harder and pull themselves out of poverty. >

How is demanding bilateral equal trade agreements imperialist? Why should china get to demand special treatment on what would otherwise be an open market? 
Latin America got screwed because the US went to China for manufacturing. I am well aware. I am just pointing out that there are other alternatives. 
We are in a situation where china is repeatedly sabre rattling in the Pacific snd using it's incumbency to demand concessions. These are not the actions of a good partner. And that's what I would really like here. >

You're using terms but I don't feel like you understand what they mean. China doesn't get special treatment, they negotiated their terms using their economic leverage. Nobody is allowing China to operate a closed market because it's China, they are doing it because that's the deal that China put up and others agreed to because they needed what China was offering. You say you want an open market, but what you're describing is a market where the US gets to dictate political stipulations for trade.
Forcing developing countries to open up their markets is classic imperialism. Western capitalists have historically swooped in and bought up everything of value and siphoned profits back their home countries. You also obviously don't know jack about what the US has done in Latin American if you think outsourcing to China is the main issue. Please go learn about Latin America–United States relations.
Everything you say suggests privilege and imperialism, because you think you have the right to dictate the actions of other countries, and because you think you have the right to tell countries how to be "good". >

The argument you are making is that it would be similarly acceptable to justify a worker being paid below what it costs to live (ie, the arguments against minimum wage) because that is just what the worker could negotiate. It's objectively unsustainable and probably even morally wrong to require people to work for less money than they could literally pay for themselves on. It's not valid to say it's justified by natural law or whatever. 
There are intrinsically fair and unfair practices in the world. There are different philosophies and some of them should be reasoned out as invalid or unjustifiable. China limiting free speech for it's citizens is unjustifiable. China running corporate activity in the US while disallowing the US companies to do the same in China is unjustifiable. It is unjustifiable for China to extract Chinese nationals from foreign soil using kidnapping techniques, for the same reason it is unacceptable for Russia to have poisoned former KGB spies on British soil. 
Ultimately China is allowed to demand to continue these unfair practices because we have economic relations with them and it would "hurt" - financially and politically to discontinue these relations. For this reason we have been historically reluctant to openly disagree with the CCP on the Taiwan issue - despite the eventuality of a mainland invasion of Taiwan to be, again, unjustifiable. 
All I am saying is that the US should put long term sustainability and human rights first by some measure. What that includes, it is hard to say. A ban on new business in China? Tariffs on business which was required to operate through a Chinese owned subsidiary? Escalating sanctions for ongoing human rights violations and literal genocides? Bans on technology transfer to China to support ethnic facial recognition? >


There are intrinsically fair and unfair practices in the world.

That's incredibly naive.

China limiting free speech for its citizens is unjustifiable.

Singapore and Vietnam also do this. Should the US stop trading with them also?

China running corporate activity in the US while disallowing the US companies to do the same in China is unjustifiable.

Every single country has some measure of protectionist policies. Calling it unjustifiable without any reasoning is not convincing in the least.

It is unjustifiable for China to extract Chinese nationals from foreign soil using kidnapping techniques.

Once again, no explanation. We'd prefer if it didn't happen, but the CIA performs assassinations world wide and domestically. The US snatches people up and tortures in black sites for decades without trial. The justification is always national security, that these actions preserve the security of the nation.

for the same reason it is unacceptable for Russia to have poisoned former KGB spies on British soil.

Yet the world just accepted it. Try not to think of your own opinion as an objective truth and observe the reality of the world.

Ultimately China is allowed to demand to continue these unfair practices because we have economic relations with them and it would "hurt" - financially and politically to discontinue these relations. For this reason we have been historically reluctant to openly disagree with the CCP on the Taiwan issue.

I don't think you know the history of this issue at all. China had no any economic leverage back when this conflict began. The historical reason for how US handles the China-Taiwan conflict comes from the Taiwan Relations Act and Three Communiqués. These occured when China had a GPD per capita of $200 USD, today it's over $12,000.

All I am saying is that the US should put long term sustainability and human rights first by some measure.

Yes they should, as should every country. But that's not how the reality of geopolitics works. The US supports multiple regimes that abuse human rights because they need leverage in the middle east for cheap oil. They have the largest prison population in the world, and while non-whites make up only 40% of the population, they make up 60% of the prison population. Every other month there is a new police killing of an innocent black citizen.
They are the biggest supporter of an apartheid state where the Muslims are essentially trapped in an open-air prison. They have spent more than 90% of the years between 1775 fighting wars overseas, killing countless civilians all over the world. Just most recently they blew up a foreign aid worker and 7 kids while leaving Afghanistan. The American Service-Members' Protection Act states that the force of the US military will be used against the International Criminal Court to protect US officials and military members from facing justice for war crimes.
China needs to do much better, but the US has no moral high ground from which they can ask China to do so. >

Now my bingo card for 2023 disasters is ruined... Who the hell would have guessed world war 3 over a god damn balloon... >

Nah your bingo card is still good. Nobody is going to war over this. It's all just theater. >

Tolerating Russias shit got us the Ukraine war. Tolerating chinas shit will give us another. >

China needs gtfo of trying to export their social dystopia anywhere outside of their borders. Rather die than life like a rats in a maze in a country where you can disappear in the middle of the night for saying the wrong thing, or pissing off the wrong rich person, with not even a trial to defend yourself.