Speaker 1: From Bloomberg News and I Heart Radio. It's the big tag.
Speaker 1: I'm West Kasova. Today, the US shot down that Chinese balloon.
Speaker 1: So what happens now? At first, it seemed like a weird,
Speaker 1: somewhat alarming curiosity, this giant Chinese balloon flying at high
Speaker 1: altitude across the US, the size of three school buses.
Speaker 1: China claimed that it was a science balloon that had
Speaker 1: drifted off course. President Biden ordered the things shot down
Speaker 1: on Saturday once it reached open water off the coast
Speaker 1: of South Carolina. China claimed outrage, and now that threatens
Speaker 1: to worsen the already tense relationship between two of the
Speaker 1: world's most powerful nations. My colleague Ras Mathison overseas Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: government and political coverage around the world, and she's here
Speaker 1: with me now from London to sort out what this
Speaker 1: was all about and where things go from here. So
Speaker 1: the Chinese are claiming that this balloon was a science
Speaker 1: monitoring device that somehow drifted off course and wound up
Speaker 1: over the un seas. Is that plausible? Well, from what
Speaker 1: we know from the US government to U S intelligence sources,
Speaker 1: they say that this in no way could have been
Speaker 1: a weather balloon, which is what the Chinese authorities are saying,
Speaker 1: there was too much on board in terms of its
Speaker 1: ability to monitor and surveil to be just there to
Speaker 1: sort of check the clouds or the weather floating over
Speaker 1: US or Northern American airspace, and um, they could see
Speaker 1: that it was obviously able to do much more. So
Speaker 1: this obviously was going over some very sensitive terrain in
Speaker 1: the US, which makes it very difficult of course again
Speaker 1: to sort of believe the Chinese assertions that was just
Speaker 1: there to check out the weather. These are very important
Speaker 1: and sensitive weapons installations and so on. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: they can't quite dictate where this goes once it's in
Speaker 1: the air. But it did seem to have some mobility
Speaker 1: control and certainly when it was sent up, sent in
Speaker 1: a certain direction, and all of that, including just the
Speaker 1: material was on board the balloon, suggests that it was
Speaker 1: in no way just a weather balloon. And what was
Speaker 1: the material and more, because when we think about, you know,
Speaker 1: a weather balloon or any of these balloons, we think
Speaker 1: of that kind of balloon. Maybe it has a little
Speaker 1: thing attached to it they can take weather readings, but
Speaker 1: this thing was enormous. It was indeed, and very big
Speaker 1: in the sky, and that's in fact how it ended
Speaker 1: up getting spotted was because it was just showing up
Speaker 1: in the sky. It seems to have had some advanced
Speaker 1: material for a balloon. Of course, I think we all
Speaker 1: think of balloon is sort of a child's toy at
Speaker 1: a fair but in fact, as you say, this was
Speaker 1: a very very big craft with a lot of sophisticated
Speaker 1: material on board, and that was packed into a fairly
Speaker 1: small space inside the balloon, and that was sort of
Speaker 1: the technology not just to take pictures, but also to
Speaker 1: pick up a bunch of signals. So really doing semi
Speaker 1: the work of a satellite from a from a lower
Speaker 1: altitude is the idea that the technology in it was
Speaker 1: enabling them to get that kind of information that a
Speaker 1: satellite from a much higher altitude could also do. So
Speaker 1: it's not just taking photos, although that's a part of it,
Speaker 1: and that's what they were seeing in the technology. But
Speaker 1: what was interesting about this balloon was the technology to
Speaker 1: drive it. Is they're saying there was there was sort
Speaker 1: of advanced material in this that enabled them to send
Speaker 1: the balloon in a certain direction and for the balloon
Speaker 1: then to essentially direct itself. And that's part of the again,
Speaker 1: the argument that this was much much more than a
Speaker 1: weather balloon, as you say, was spotted because people can
Speaker 1: actually see the thing. Everybody is looking at the sky. Now,
Speaker 1: we have satellites looking down, we have people looking up.
Speaker 1: Why did the Chinese think that this wouldn't be spotted
Speaker 1: or did they know it was going to be spot Well?
Speaker 1: This is the interesting thing because I think when a
Speaker 1: lot of people think about China and the Chinese government,
Speaker 1: they think of this monolithic, all powerful, all in control,
Speaker 1: moving in the one direction under all orders entity. And
Speaker 1: it's a really big country and it operates not not
Speaker 1: necessarily in that way at all. So the first question
Speaker 1: really is did the Chinese government know it was going
Speaker 1: up now? Um? Did they order it to go up? Now?
Speaker 1: Do you have entities that work on their own time scale?
Speaker 1: Perhaps had been the intention to send up surveillance balloons
Speaker 1: around now, but no one thought to send a memo
Speaker 1: to the organization that does this to say, perhaps don't
Speaker 1: do it at this point in time. It's a sensitive time,
Speaker 1: and so no one stopped it. Um. So whether this
Speaker 1: was designed to happen now as as a message from
Speaker 1: the central government that's really unclear and as perhaps something
Speaker 1: we'll actually really never know for sure if it was.
Speaker 1: That's a really sort of big question, because it was
Speaker 1: really really clear also from the language from China, from
Speaker 1: Beijing in the previous weeks and including at the start
Speaker 1: of this incident, they really wanted this not to blow up.
Speaker 1: Pardon the language, but the panner on balloons, but they
Speaker 1: really didn't want this to escalate. They started out very
Speaker 1: very sort of low key in fact, then there was
Speaker 1: a very unusual apology. We didn't mean this thing to
Speaker 1: come across right now. So that again points to the
Speaker 1: fact there wasn't necessarily some kind of coordinated action here
Speaker 1: and a real message trying to be sent. And yet
Speaker 1: this isn't the first time that the Chinese government has
Speaker 1: sent a balloon toward the US. It happened a couple
Speaker 1: of times before when President Trump was in office and
Speaker 1: also at the beginning of the Boning administration. Is that right, well,
Speaker 1: that's right. In fact, there's a long, long history of
Speaker 1: Chinese surveillance craft, including balloons, coming into various orbits that
Speaker 1: affect the US but also other countries over the years.
Speaker 1: And interestingly, conversely, the US obviously has deployed these also
Speaker 1: as mechanisms as surveillance over the years, so it's not
Speaker 1: an unusual thing to have balloons floating about in the air,
Speaker 1: and of course China always saying that they are indeed
Speaker 1: just to monitor the weather um, so there's been a
Speaker 1: long history of this. The interesting thing is that with
Speaker 1: the deployment of satellites and advanced technology, there's still the
Speaker 1: use of these balloons above all just to sort of
Speaker 1: float across the air and take pictures really of terrain
Speaker 1: um and they've been reports the US government is looking
Speaker 1: to beef up its own use of surveillance balloons going forward,
Speaker 1: even as they too rely on satellites. So these things
Speaker 1: are really still seen as sort of a low level
Speaker 1: tool of statecraft, partly because they don't really have radar,
Speaker 1: they don't have heavy materials, so they can drift along
Speaker 1: for days, usually out of sight, and they're not caught
Speaker 1: on radar, and that's why they're still quite useful. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this one was so big and so visible that they
Speaker 1: became a different story, but it's possible there have been
Speaker 1: many many balloons over the years that have gone over
Speaker 1: that we've never really known about. As you mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: that it went over some pretty sensitive terrain. It was
Speaker 1: over in Montana where there's mental installations, and then traverse
Speaker 1: the entirety of the US until it were shut down
Speaker 1: off the east coast once it reached water, and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't damage anything when it fell. Do US officials know
Speaker 1: exactly what this thing was looking for? Well, that they
Speaker 1: don't know, um, But at least the one thing is
Speaker 1: when they were aware of it and they could start
Speaker 1: tracking it, It's possible the U s could in fact
Speaker 1: be sort of reverse in telling this thing if that's
Speaker 1: such a phrase, um, and that they were able to
Speaker 1: work out what this thing was looking at they could
Speaker 1: draw their own intelligence from it. So letting it actually
Speaker 1: go across the US for several days probably gave the
Speaker 1: US in turn a treat a trove of stuff for
Speaker 1: themselves to look out. Ras please stick around. Our conversation
Speaker 1: continues after the break. Razi used that great word, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's a natural word reverse in telling
Speaker 1: that the US was trying to figure out where they
Speaker 1: could learn. Now that this thing is in the water,
Speaker 1: are they're going to be able to actually get it
Speaker 1: and crack it open and see what intelligence it gather.
Speaker 1: So it's actually quite interesting because they sent fighter jets
Speaker 1: F twenty two Raptors to shoot this thing down. It's
Speaker 1: possibly the first time in the twenty five year history
Speaker 1: of the F twenty two that it's done what's not
Speaker 1: as an air to air kill, and that's sending something
Speaker 1: through the air to kill something else that's also in
Speaker 1: the air. After twenty five years of this program. It's
Speaker 1: also at high gravity. It's really really amazing the pilot
Speaker 1: managed to hit it, because it's very, very difficult to
Speaker 1: shoot these things down. Um even though it's sort of
Speaker 1: semi slow moving, it's just sort of drifting through the sky.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have any heat on it, so you can't
Speaker 1: put radar on it to try and shoot it down.
Speaker 1: It's technically very difficult. I recall there was some years ago,
Speaker 1: I think it was in Canada where there was something
Speaker 1: else They tried to shoot down a balloon and they
Speaker 1: put thousands of rounds into it and it failed to
Speaker 1: think it. So the fact they managed to do this
Speaker 1: is quite interesting, but also they did it in a
Speaker 1: very targeted way, which is they were trying to preserve
Speaker 1: what's known as the payload, which is the technological stuff
Speaker 1: they want to study afterward, and of course they're very
Speaker 1: used to picking stuff up out of the ocean after
Speaker 1: it lands, and so with that, of course, you know
Speaker 1: they're quite they're quite expert at being able to fish
Speaker 1: stuff out of the water. So you imagine what they've
Speaker 1: done is they've they've shot it down over the sea.
Speaker 1: They're able to fish it out of the ocean and
Speaker 1: therefore they can study it. And of course this was
Speaker 1: a sidewinder missile that they used to fire again at
Speaker 1: very high altitude, so at first for the F twenty two,
Speaker 1: quite possibly in its twenty five year history. And so
Speaker 1: this thing crashed down into the ocean. Was it in
Speaker 1: one piece? I guess the debris could be found up
Speaker 1: to seven miles away from where it splashed into the water,
Speaker 1: that's right. But the only thing they really need to
Speaker 1: track as it crashed was the payload, which is of
Speaker 1: course the stuff they want to study. There's a large
Speaker 1: part of the balloon which is just the infrastructure that
Speaker 1: allows it to float along, and that's not worth anything.
Speaker 1: Of course, a missile will blow it into smithereens. But
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do when they shut it down
Speaker 1: was to destroy the infrastructure of the balloon while preserving
Speaker 1: the stuff that they would like to look out afterward,
Speaker 1: and that's the stuff they would have been tracking as
Speaker 1: it hit the water. Rise. What's the chance that when
Speaker 1: that thing hit the water, like all of its electron
Speaker 1: has just got fried, or maybe it had had a
Speaker 1: self destruct setting that win and goes plummeting it, you know,
Speaker 1: fries itself out. Well, that's entirely possible, because again, this
Speaker 1: seems to have been quite an advanced Chinese surveillance balloon
Speaker 1: in terms of the technology that was on it. That's
Speaker 1: what they were saying. This is a different kind of
Speaker 1: balloon then they had seen before, and when they shot
Speaker 1: it down out of the sky again at very high
Speaker 1: altitude with a very big missile, there's every chance that
Speaker 1: it did destroy the entirety of the balloon, including what
Speaker 1: they would like to pick up afterward. But at least
Speaker 1: we know that there's the chance that it hit the
Speaker 1: water intact, and if it did that they'd be keen
Speaker 1: to fish it out again. And of course whatever they
Speaker 1: faignd is going to probably come classified, so we may
Speaker 1: not know for a long time or ever, really what
Speaker 1: they found on board that thing. That's entirely right, and
Speaker 1: there's been to see some similarities to previous incidents. Of course,
Speaker 1: there was a U. S. Navy drone that China picked
Speaker 1: up in the South China see some years ago and
Speaker 1: held onto for several weeks before they gave it back,
Speaker 1: and that was the question, of course, what were they
Speaker 1: doing with it in the meantime. So even if there
Speaker 1: is some kind of return transfer at some point, the
Speaker 1: longer they hold onto it, the more it gives them
Speaker 1: the chance to study it. Ris You mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: the Chinese government took pains to try to downplay the
Speaker 1: significance of the balloon, that they even issued initially an apology.
Speaker 1: Of course, after it were shot down, then it was
Speaker 1: anger and outrage because they're claiming, of course that it's
Speaker 1: a science balloon. This comes at a kind of a
Speaker 1: bad time for US Chinese relations right now. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about what that's going to mean going forward? Well,
Speaker 1: that is the big question. I mean, we've seen episodes
Speaker 1: like this before again where we've had near collisions or collisions,
Speaker 1: or we've had China picking up US Navy material vice versa,
Speaker 1: and those things have escalated and then de escalated because
Speaker 1: in the end, neither China nor the US really wants
Speaker 1: to see something escalate into a potential military conflict. But
Speaker 1: this became, This came at a really really important moment
Speaker 1: for China US ties because of course the US President
Speaker 1: Joe Biden met with Chinese President C J. Ping late
Speaker 1: last year at the G twenty in Bali, and that
Speaker 1: was their first face to face meeting as presidents, and
Speaker 1: they used that to really try and put a floor
Speaker 1: at least under the relationship. No one's going to pretend
Speaker 1: that there are ongoing tensions over trade, over technology, over security,
Speaker 1: over human rights, and the longer term trajectories two big
Speaker 1: powers competing with each other, but there was an understanding
Speaker 1: at least that there was probably in their mutual interest
Speaker 1: to put a floor under that relationship. And that set
Speaker 1: the scene for a bit of a thought, including what
Speaker 1: was going to be the visit to China by the
Speaker 1: U S Secretary of State Anthony B. Lincoln, which was
Speaker 1: happening the previous weekend, but of course the balloon made
Speaker 1: that impossible. And how we've seen the US defer that trip.
Speaker 1: They haven't canceled it, but they've deferred it. And that
Speaker 1: really is a setback to very fragile, fragile steps towards
Speaker 1: a better relationship between the two countries. And now, of course,
Speaker 1: the shooting down of the balloon means what does China
Speaker 1: have to do or say here in terms of a response.
Speaker 1: We've seen the shift in rehetorate that you were talking about,
Speaker 1: whereas what does that translate to. Does that mean that
Speaker 1: we see some kind of retaliation from China? Is it
Speaker 1: in the trade space, is it in the security space,
Speaker 1: the military space, isn't a technology space. Do they feel
Speaker 1: they have to do some sort of response? And then
Speaker 1: does that just have a cascade Effectum? What you do
Speaker 1: see though, really still through this, despite this tension, is
Speaker 1: probably a continued desire on both China and the US
Speaker 1: to try and still prevent this from spiraling out of control.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's a difference between the public response China
Speaker 1: as a show strength after those balloons were shut down,
Speaker 1: and then there's the behind the scenes diplomacy. Do we
Speaker 1: know whether that conversation taking place is maybe more along
Speaker 1: the lines of what you said earlier, which is China saying, hey,
Speaker 1: look we didn't mean to send this thing. This was
Speaker 1: a screw up by somebody lower down in order to
Speaker 1: diffuse those tensions. Well, we do know that Anthony B.
Speaker 1: Lincoln spoke with his counterpart Wangye on the weekend. They
Speaker 1: had a phone call, and that's something because that says
Speaker 1: at least they're still talking and again that China is
Speaker 1: willing to pick up the phone. The other thing are
Speaker 1: reports in China that the officials that sort of run
Speaker 1: these operations with surveillance balloon that the senior official has
Speaker 1: been moved out of his job on the weekend, which
Speaker 1: is quite interesting, and the fact that that's actually been
Speaker 1: publicized another sign again that China doesn't want this to escalate.
Speaker 1: But as you made a really important point whereas, which
Speaker 1: is that C. J. Ping has to show strength at home.
Speaker 1: He has to show that he's being firm in this moment,
Speaker 1: he's being tough because of course you know that's very
Speaker 1: much how his power resonates within China. So how much
Speaker 1: of this is for domestic purposes and how much for
Speaker 1: the rest of the world is in really that question
Speaker 1: and reading between that you can see again from the
Speaker 1: Wangi Anthony B. Lincoln phone call, at least communications are
Speaker 1: continuing and back channeling, no doubt is similar and that
Speaker 1: they really want to make sure this does not spiral
Speaker 1: out of control. We'll be right back ras. Another big
Speaker 1: thing happening soon for Joe Biden is the Stage of
Speaker 1: the Union. That speech has always tinkered with up to
Speaker 1: the very last second. But boy, this is a big
Speaker 1: news section that he's probably going to need to add.
Speaker 1: Is there any indication of how he is going to
Speaker 1: talk about this? Well, it's interesting because of course they
Speaker 1: knew about this balloon for days when it was flying
Speaker 1: over the US. They didn't publicize that. When it became public,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of Republican criticism. There were demands
Speaker 1: immediately to do something very assertive, and criticism for not
Speaker 1: having acted sooner. That said, he has now shot the
Speaker 1: thing down, so he can say, look at me, I'm
Speaker 1: being very tough on China. I'm being assertive. We're not
Speaker 1: getting pushed around. That on the back of some pretty
Speaker 1: good jobs numbers for the US in the latest employment
Speaker 1: data set him up on a better footing on the economy.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine a slight amount of possible Biden's
Speaker 1: swagger going into the State of the Union. Look at
Speaker 1: me again, I'm being tough on China. The economy is
Speaker 1: on a better footing, so you can imagine they'll spin
Speaker 1: it that way. The question the longer term is that again,
Speaker 1: given the level of Republican criticism that happened here, he's
Speaker 1: got to deal with that through to the election in
Speaker 1: four the republic and controlled Congress. Is he going to
Speaker 1: be directed by Republican criticism? Does he have to react
Speaker 1: to that every time when issues, including China. So you
Speaker 1: can imagine quite an assertive sort of the Union speech,
Speaker 1: But really the underlying question is easy going to be
Speaker 1: directed increasing on foreign policy by the Republican Party. I
Speaker 1: heard all that Republican criticism too. It seemed like kind
Speaker 1: of an easy enough thing for Republicans to complain about.
Speaker 1: And people were saying, shoot that thing down. But of
Speaker 1: course if you shot that giant thing the size of
Speaker 1: three school buses down over the US, it would have
Speaker 1: fallen on something or someone. Well, that's right, And certainly
Speaker 1: now that he's actually acted and he said that he
Speaker 1: acted in the best interests of the safety of the
Speaker 1: American people. Um well, yet of course showing a reaction
Speaker 1: to the Chinese government, that that Republican criticism will fade.
Speaker 1: But certainly you saw the rhetoric from the White House
Speaker 1: go from fairly low key to quite heated very quickly,
Speaker 1: and that was really probably driven by the need to
Speaker 1: show that he was being tough on China, and China
Speaker 1: of course understands that, especially in a big speech like that,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is going to you know, rattle the saber,
Speaker 1: just like Ji Jimping is doing in the other direction.
Speaker 1: How do you get past that kind of moment of
Speaker 1: I don't know, political theater to make sure that it
Speaker 1: doesn't become something else. Well, it's what you were talking
Speaker 1: about before. It's keeping those lines of communication open and
Speaker 1: the back channels open because they'll understand that c Jmping
Speaker 1: of course has to sound tough. He has had a
Speaker 1: very difficult time in China in terms of the COVID
Speaker 1: crisis that's really hit the economy. It's hit the Chinese
Speaker 1: people very hard. He wants the economy moving again, and
Speaker 1: that's an imperative for him to keep again comms with
Speaker 1: the US going trade and investment coming in and out
Speaker 1: of China to help his own economy. So you can
Speaker 1: imagine the back channels there are going to be absolutely
Speaker 1: crucial to understand where either of them are coming from
Speaker 1: in this moment, and then of course, how do you
Speaker 1: see a way through? Is there any way in the
Speaker 1: future where this b Lincoln visit can now still go ahead?
Speaker 1: What were the two supposed to talk about. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of billing about this meeting that they were going
Speaker 1: to reach some sort of breakthrough that would ease tensions
Speaker 1: with China before all this happened. Well, the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is that China never confirmed the meeting with C. Jimping,
Speaker 1: and so there was no guarantee until Lincoln got there
Speaker 1: and actually started his conversations as to whether that would
Speaker 1: go ahead. And in fact, if it hadn't happened, it
Speaker 1: would have been very very telling because Seeching Pink normally
Speaker 1: meets with sort of the Secretary of State equivalent from
Speaker 1: the U S and other countries when they visit. If
Speaker 1: they did meet, they were going to talk about an
Speaker 1: awful lot trade, technology, their economies, common interests around the world.
Speaker 1: They probably would have talked about the conflict in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: for example, that's a big one for for both countries.
Speaker 1: There were not going to be really any enormous breakthroughs
Speaker 1: from that meeting. Um, no coming away saying we've agreed
Speaker 1: to do X, Y, and Z, But really just having
Speaker 1: the meeting itself would have been a big signal and
Speaker 1: and and a win for both countries arguably, and it
Speaker 1: would have just set the tone because after that, potentially
Speaker 1: you would have had a visit to the US from
Speaker 1: Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, and that you could see
Speaker 1: an ongoing series of visits coming after that that really
Speaker 1: would have deepened this saw that we were expecting. So
Speaker 1: it was really about just opening the door to that
Speaker 1: that than significant initial breakthroughs. As we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: China in the US often like to talk tough about
Speaker 1: each other, but both of these nations need each other
Speaker 1: for economic and other reasons. When you look down the
Speaker 1: road a couple of months from now, do you think
Speaker 1: that this is still front of mind or do you
Speaker 1: think it fades and more pressing concerns eventually rise up again.
Speaker 1: The reality is we're probably going to see further bouts
Speaker 1: of tension even if this immediate crisis passed, because, of course,
Speaker 1: the US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said he intends
Speaker 1: to visit Taiwan, which is a democratically ruled ireland. However,
Speaker 1: that China sees as its sovereign territory. And we saw
Speaker 1: what happened when the then speaking Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan.
Speaker 1: China retaliated militarily by firing off a bunch of staff
Speaker 1: around Taiwan, missiles and drools and so on. And if
Speaker 1: that goes ahead, we might we might see a pause
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks or a couple of months
Speaker 1: after this, but that will then lead to another escalation.
Speaker 1: And the reality is in the run up to u
Speaker 1: S election and beyond, we're only going to see a
Speaker 1: hardening really from here and in the broader toime, we're
Speaker 1: just going to see again two very big superpowers in
Speaker 1: a in a very combative and competitive relationship. Ros Mathison,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for talking with me today. Anytime you
Speaker 1: can follow all the news about the Chinese balloon, and
Speaker 1: no doubt there will be plenty of it at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks for listening to us here at the
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Speaker 1: punk and punk punt bunk, then and there