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Anti-China Rhetoric Is Off the Charts in Western Media (thediplomat.com)

submitted 1 year ago by zephyreks@lemmy.ml to c/news

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[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

U.S. president Biden ... however stated that it was "not a major breach", and that he also believed that the Chinese leadership wasn't even aware of the balloon. ... On September 17, 2023, in an interview with CBS news, General Mark Milley, the retiring 20th US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated “I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with high degree of certainty got no intelligence, and didn't transmit any intelligence back to China." Technical experts had also found that the balloon's sensors had never been activated while it was travelling over the Continental United States. The general also touched on a leading theory that the reason that it was flying over the United States, was probably because it was blown off-track, where the balloon had been heading towards Hawaii however winds at 60,000 feet simply came into the equation. Miley said, "those winds are very high.. the particular motor on that aircraft can't go against those winds at that altitude." c

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Chinese_balloon_incident

TLDR: Unbeknownst to China's leadership, one of their balloons blew off-track (hardly a rare occurence). It didn't collect or transmit any intelligence.

But if you watched the media coverage of that incident, you'd likely come to a different conclusion. For example:

Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive U.S. military sites, despite U.S. efforts to block it

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/china-spy-balloon-collected-intelligence-us-military-bases-rcna77155

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