On Wednesday, residents in Montana saw a mysterious object — a balloon — hovering and bobbing around in the skies. The enigma brought Americans out to squint at the heavens, caused a diplomatic visit to be canceled and opened a political debate.
How did a balloon end up kindling such tension between Washington and Beijing?
Guest: Edward Wong, a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- The Chinese balloon drifted for seven days across the United States. Here’s a timeline of events.
- The balloon was brought down by an air-to-air missile fired at it off the coast of South Carolina.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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from the new york times, I'm sabrina tyranny, seeing the daily over the past week an object of care,
ass. It in the sky over montana turned into a crisis
between the: u s in China today, my
colleague edward walk on how a balloon could trigger such a high stakes showdown and
It says about the relationship between the world's two superpowers that it did
its monday to basics and tell us the saga of the chinese balloon. Why think their first started on Wednesday? That's the moon, but what the heck is that residents and binds Hannah looked up in the sky.
This mysterious object. What planet is that? I have no idea what it is. It's been their station.
For about the last thirty five minutes, not discern what the heck is, then it was.
covering it was bobbing around. It did look like a balloon, but it also looked like maybe a planet, a star and then another mysterious thing happen a wednesday.
I m sitting in my driveway here in buildings montana. There is the ground stop on our airport
the authority shut down there.
Port, around billings Montana, for three hours, and then that really set people spent.
Waiting about what exactly was going on in the sky above their heads.
and could they tell what it was with the naked eye? It was hard to tell us the naked eye, but something
Your first started zooming in on it, and once you looked at those magnified images, it became much more apparent that owes a balloon. This round object- and there was this darker part of it on its underbelly that
seem like a carriage of some sort, that was housing, solar panels, surveillance equipment. These people who capturing these images started posts in southern social media, so word was starting to spread around.
at least the residents of montana, and then the next afternoon, on thursday, NBC news broke the story that the object in the sky above Montana, that all these people have been looking at, that they ve been taking photos of was actually chinese spy balloon and the pentagon held a brief.
In very shortly after that and confirm that news and to say that they were monitoring it and trying to decide what to do about it. So China,
caught spying on the? U S, that's right! China had sent up this balloon at some point. It spent days drifting across the north west of the euro,
through alaska and canada and then arrived in Montana, and what was the significance of montana at world the pentagon and us officials were very concerned at this. Balloon was above montana because it houses one hundred fifty intercontinental ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads enlarge silos and we don't know for sure, but the fact that the balloon drifted over Montana could have been an effort by chinese officials to collect information on these missile silos. Okay, if a country spy on each other right? U S, spies on china, china, spies on the? U S! Why make such a big deal of it? Now a us officials have told us
this has happened before the pentagon came out and said that it's happened three times during the trump administration one time early in the by demonstration and that in each instance, did appear brief
we in the? U s or over the continental? U s and then drifted away. This time it was different because the
lingered much longer than in the previous episodes. Ok, so the balloons up there in the
the pentagon, knows about it. What did they decide to do about it? Well, depending on officials are looking at this object and you realize it's a huge machine, just a undercarriage itself. The part that has a solar panels and the surveillance equipment is the size of three school buses and in the round, part of the balloons even larger than that. So there was talk about possibly shooting down the balloon, but
pentagon leaders eventually decided that that could cause damage on the ground. The debris raining down might keep people in my head buildings, so they decided to hold off on that and track the progress of the balloon to find a spot at which they could bring it down,
So basically they leave it in the air deal even in the air and they use various devices and asked deploy jets to keep an eye on it.
So the? U s says this is basically china, spying on the? U s, how does china respond? What do they say it? Is?
at first. China does in knowledge that this event took place, but then they do come out with a statement from the foreign ministry and it says that china did send up an aerial surveillance device into the sky,
I am indebted had arrived in the? U s, they say that this device was used for gathering
search on whether there was a weather research, berlin and they also say that it was an innocent civilian device and that they had no intention of sending it to the. U s. It went off course according to their statement, and what does the us government say about that? Does it believe it a pentagon officials insist that their own research on the machine shows.
That was an intelligence gathering device of a national security. Nature nod something innocent be used for
during weather, but there was a very unusual part of the chinese statement and that was a line expressing regret for what happened, and that's very rare for china to say that they often times dawning knowledge that in unusual incident took place and very rarely do they express any hint and an apology or any sort of regret for what happened. What was behind that? What was behind that very unusual gesture from the chinese
Will the really critical thing to understand here is the timing of the appearance of this balloon showed up in the? U s in the lead up to this important diplomatic meeting that was set to take place in beijing between? U s in chinese officials, the us secretary of state, tony lincoln, was supposed to get on a plane on friday, night and land in beijing on sunday where he was going to meet with presidency jinping of china, and this is the first time since twenty eighteen that a u s secretary of state, was planning to visit china, but the balloon put the trip in jeopardy and appeared that china was putting
support, jeddak sounding statement in an attempt to salvage the agreement we just sign, but that was enough gin if you allow me, I just like to briefly address the presence of the chinese
What's in? U s airspace! On Friday afternoon we listened a secretary. Blinking gave a press conference. We said that the chinese spy balloon was an irresponsible act
part of the chinese government? The presence of the surveillance balloon in europe's airspace is a clear violation.
You a sovereignty and in
national law that the balloon violate a u s, sovereignty and that a trip was off for now. In the meantime,
The united states will continue to maintain open lines of communication with china, including to address this ongoing incident. So all this business with a balloon got pretty serious. In the end, its now a diplomatic crisis yeah, it was a big deal that the troopers cancel. The leaders had been planning this for months, but once the chinese spy balloon became public
Then this trip became a much more politically sensitive topic will be first elicited a tremendous embarrassment for the united states of america is one where republican lawmakers and politicians had started bashing Biden for not taking harder
against the balloon, maybe shooting down immediately they could have shown.
This thing down well before it was over Montana.
I mean that they could a shot this thing down before it hid the you know the coast of alaska and also taking harder action on china for studying the belief in the first place,
we need to address it directly. Take it seriously. I think he believes, like it, taylor swift concert looking across amerika some kind of a tour. This is not the chinese
My balloon tour. He needs to address
had on emerges garden.
brush it and tell him and the binding ministrations very sensitive to how its china policies appeared to the public. It wants to appear
sufficiently hawkish and china, as do republican leaders, each side,
two clear, more hawkish in that
IRAN, china,
so at this balloon seems to have caused quite a bit of diplomatic
remind us what is its fate in the end, so the balloon kept drafting for a couple days over to the south eastern. U s pushed by the winds and ended up off the coast of south carolina and then on saturday the pentagon sent a couple
at twenty two fighter jets up into the sky. We just not lunar blue phone and shot
the building with a single missile
The story of the police
had ended there in those waters off south carolina this whole
Besides shells how fragile and how sensitive relations between the two worlds major superpowers happen.
Carbon
the
we'll be right, back
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I find out more about subscribing to the athletic in new york times all access at n y times dot com, slash athletic. I love Wardle. Okay, so at this balloon scuttles, this really important diplomatic mission, and that really reveals the tension
in this relationship between usa, china so remind us of that backstory. Why headed gotten so bad you?
china relations are one of the worst points in decades and it's been getting worse for years now soon after President XI took office in two thousand and twelve us officials realized that he was taking china in a much more autocratic direction. He was taking repressive actions against the ethnic weaker minority. In Xinjiang he was taking hardline actions against people in Hong kong and who is also pushing
military to be much more adventures in the territories around china, that included in the indian himalayas in the south, china, sea in the east, china, sea and also across the taiwan strait. And, as you know, Taiwan is the most sensitive issue between the. U
in china in remind us why Taiwan in particular? Why is it the most sensitive issue here? Well, when a communist party took over china, nineteen fourteen, I the people who opposed them, fled to taiwan and set up a government in exile there and since then, the? U S is pledged support to taiwan, which is a democratic island. It has said that it will give taiwan weapons of the defence of nature to protect itself in the event of innovation by china, but in beijing, the communist party
says that taiwan is part of its territory, it's not an independent nation and that it will take taiwan by force. If Taiwan does angry at some point to unite with me,
china, you know who's getting the oil china. China is ripping us all with chinese. In the trump administration, national security officials took a much more confrontational.
And towards china? And Taiwan was one of the big issues that they focused on on finite trump. Tell the wall street journal that America's one china policy course it
usually recognizes beijing's government, but not taiwan's. He said that policy, one china is negotiable overnight, but started talking about whether
I know my trying in vain taiwan imminently and the also story to train expanded diplomatic space between the- u s and taiwan, and what about the binding administration
during the vitamins tracing talk in washington of a potential invasion of taiwan by china accelerated, and they started looking out this against a backdrop of russia's invasion, ukraine, they thought that if russia would indeed ukraine without any regard for the existing were warder than china may do the same thing with taiwan right after russia invades ukraine. Suddenly taiwan takes on a whole new significance exactly and present bind himself self strong views on taiwan. Are you willing to get in
militarily to defend taiwan. If it comes to that. Yes, you are ass, a commitment we made. He said for time, so that the u s military will defend high while in the event of a chinese invasion, which is different than what other recent american president's have said. You are sufficient.
hey there hasn't been changed. She s policy on taiwan and they don't want explicitly say that they use will defend taiwan, but Biden has been very out there saying that and congressional leaders have their own
and points of view on taiwan. This morning, the meeting china did not want to happen. Last august, speaker policy made a visit to taiwan, the first by how speakers, since the ninety nine is not simple:
see his set. America will never abandon the island during a trick. That's been condemned as a major provocation by china and it caused tensions between. U s in china to spike. China have been asking the by demonstrations to prevent her from going and then after she did go, get started, sending more planes across the taiwan strait and it became law.
Missiles around taiwan and at least five those even landed in the waters near Japan, ok, so the tensions
extremely high? Taiwan is at the centre of it in the bud.
Administration is genuinely worried that there could actually be some military confrontation. What is the EU s do during a by demonstration, pentagon officials and other national security officials have been trying to build up their military alliances and partnerships all across asia. So, for example, it's been building up a partnership with australia in britain and its agreed
You give nuclear submarine technology, tell Australia, which is a big deal, and china seized at as a huge move against the chinese military
The by demonstrations also said that it supports japan
vitalizing, its military and moving away from its pacifists stand and having japan have a strong military that can be deployed in other parts of asia, and just last week you s defence, secretary, lloyd, Austin, on a visit to the philippines announced at the. U S, military would have greater access to as many as nine different military bases across tat island chain. The use in all trade has had a small presence in the philippines, but this will give it a much greater presence across the entire country, including some sites that are very close to taiwan and pentagon. Officials say that they could put equipment at these different sites as well as troops, and the presence will be temporary but would still put the u s a much stronger position if there was a confrontational china at some point. Ok, so there's this rising tension over taiwan, that's spilling over in
worries about potential military confrontation windows is going on here. Well, one big change has taken place in a relationship as their national security issues have bled into economic issues. Now these are the two largest economies in the world and they have always had a robust trade relationship and a lot of people saw. Those trade ties adds the platform for stability in the relationship that still happens, but now there is very sensitive sectors that u s, officials wants to decouple from China and, what's an example had the biggest recent example is somehow conductors, and these are these small ships are used in everything from our house,
compliance, is like the refrigerators in your kitchen to weapons at the military uses for the most advanced forms of warfare. There are basically would make the world
at this point and the? U s? Now sees china,
as a very big rival in innovating semi conductors, and it wants to keep it from below advanced to. Second algae, the future trip registry
he's going to be made in america
in america by demonstration. No officials have said that this is a foundational technology and that it's not good enough for the. U s to just keep a few paces ahead of china on this. They have to prevent china from being able to innovate
this type of sector in this type of industry, china, has become more aggressive and what they call them
military civil fusion strategy, which is buying our sophisticated together chips, which is supposedly
for commercial purposes and putting them into military equipment with dance their military and we're not going to stand for that. Last october, the vitamin stricken took a very aggressive and ambitious step on this. The announced tat they would prevent: u S, companies from exporting certain types of semi conductor, chips to china, and they also said u s. Companies cannot export certain types of semi conductor manufacturing technology to china. In that sense, they would try and prevent china from being able to use tools to make its own advanced chips and the u s is also been in talks with allies. The netherlands in japan, which both have critical semi conductor, tool, technology,
to try and keep those countries and the companies the air from exporting their own manufacturing equipment to china. Ok, so the tensions really had been rising, both militarily, but also economically. So, given that what
the goal for the meeting that blinkin was supposed to have been on over the tensions so high between the two countries. Both sides were looking at this meeting as a way to bring the temperature
Down on this confrontational stand that both countries are taking against each other and an attitude was adopted by both present.
I'd and imprisoned, see when they met in bali last november. You know that a number of candidate news from conversations
over the years, and since I became president is well you're kind enough to call me to congratulate me, and I congratulate
who is well, and I believe there is a little substitute owed to face to face discussions. The two
met there on the sidelines of a summit of major
World leaders in the agreed that the top you s diplomat toning blinking, should make a trip to china. Officials from the two sides spent months planning for this meeting and the stakes are much higher for china. Why or china have been this very strict locked out for three years in covert prince? He had not been present on the world stage, and other countries are questioning its diplomatic engagement. Its economy was suffering, it was trained grapple with that slowdown. Intentions with the greatest superpower in the world have been rising throughout this entire time, so china realize they had to defuse some of those tensions,
this trip by tony lincoln was seen as a big symbolic step in we engagements a certain degree with the? U s and making sure that there were
our rails on the relationship in what about the eu,
as how were they seeing this meeting or what I was hearing from us officials was that they didn't have big expectations, that there would be major announcements coming out of this meeting. They didn't have big agreements lined up, but they did see this as important opportunity to keep channels of communication at the very top levels open. They figured that, if there's some sort of accidental military conflict that occurs in asia or if there's some other confrontation between the us and china, they need to make sure that the leaders of both countries can talk to each other and diffuse attention
so they were trying to get diplomacy working again, basically kind of cranking it back into gear to avoid having a complete breakdown, if something small happens, for example a spy balloon floating above the? U s, the ironic thing is that the exact type of episode that they feared would happen and lead to a break in communication between two countries is what happened in the case of the spy balloon. This incident that took place actually led to this breaking the trip and the thing that they were trying to establish what their trip fell apart because of that right. So the point of the trip was to make it so that something so small as a balloon
wouldn't derail the relationship and in fact it did because they hadn't had the trip exactly ok. So if this meeting is so important to china, you know something that they really wanted to happen. Why send a spy balloon exactly at this moment? It does
like this was an own goal by china, sabotaging of something they really wanted by parts of their own system, and there are some people who speculate that may be more hawkish elements in their system. Parcelling the military wanted to send this over to the: u? S too embarrassed spied and am blinking on the eve of blinking trip to china, but I think there's a more plausible explanation
That said, there is confidence in the system and the officials is sent out. The balloon didn't realize where the balloon would end up or at what
We will end up in the u S and that it will result in the scuttling of this important diplomatic trip. Their presidency
and his aids really wanted to happen. So, essentially, there's a real
noble chance, the china just kind of mess. This up here I mean, as you say, own goal like it lost out on this diplomatic chance that it really wanted, because potentially just lost track of this thing. I think what this shows is that its very difficult in this relationship for each country to read the intentions of the other one right now, you're officials are trying to look back at this episode and figure out what has actually happened. Why they're trying to send up this balloon? Couldn't do something like this in the future? What are its intentions when it does these actions and both sides are then try and forget what the next step now is in diplomacy. How can you bring stability to a relationship when something like there's something
small as spy balloon can take place on the eve of a diplomatic trip and lead to these greater tensions between the world's two great superpowers brightly. Fundamentally, what
It say about the relationship between the united states and china that one little balloon can derail this major active diplomacy. I think both governments hope that their relationship to reach a place or an event like this can be something that can be discussed, talked about and diplomats
move forward and conduct business. But right now we're things. Stand it's hard to see that happening, and I think you are officials and chinese officials,
race, for many more incidents like this,
Add. Thank you. Thanks. Arenas always great,
here for you we'll be right back.
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The democratic party made sweeping changes in the processing uses for picking presidential nominees, appending decades of tradition,
on saturday, the democratic national committee approved a primary process that starts between twenty four democratic presidential circuit.
in south carolina state the recession
He did president Joe Biden once flailing candidacy for years. The parties contests have begun with
I will focus, ended,
I am sure primary, but the party
the calendar that better reflects its own racial diversity and the diversity of the country,
a girl, I know, will be followed by new Hampshire. In nevada, then georgia and then michigan banned on Monday,
Two powerful earthquake struck turkey.
kinda buildings and killing more than sixteen hundred people. Raising this
or of a new humanitarian disaster in a region already racked by war. The seven point
magnitude earthquake hit at four seventy, nay I'm local time and was centred about twenty miles from Gaza out of a turkish provincial capital.
Near the border with syria. It was
as far away as damascus, beirut and cairo a second.
Nine hours later on Monday afternoon, residents
rescue workers on both sides of the border in multiple
These scramble to look for survivors, hundreds were believed to be trapped under the rubble and the toll
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Transcript generated on 2023-02-14.