Does Joe Biden know what he's dealing with in the recent Chinese spy balloon shootdown?

Seems dubious, given China's umbrage in the wake of it.

Describing it as “a clear overreaction,” Tan Kefei, a spokesperson for China’s Defense Ministry, said in a statement Sunday that his country reserved “the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations.” In a similarly strongly worded statement, China’s Foreign Ministry said it was “a serious violation of international customary practice.” 

Which is an interesting response given Chinese behavior.

When news of the balloon's existence first broke in the wake of Montana's locals being unable to not notice the thing overhead, the Chinese claimed it was just a weather balloon that had accidentally blown off track, through what they claimed was "force majeure," which is diplo-speak for factors they were helpless to control.

The Pentagon called bee ess on that, citing the size of the three-schoolbus payload and its obvious maneuverability, which by the funniest of coincidences, traversed over the U.S.'s most sensitive military installations from 55,000 feet, lingering and lingering over the targets in a way a tracked satellite from much higher up cannot, and enjoying that lower altitude.

Not an embarrassment in the eyes of the Chicoms. They stuck to their weather-balloon lie with alacrity, calling it a civilian research vessel as if such a thing existed in Red China where everything of importance is tied to the military.

As Rebecca Heinrichs notes in the Spectator:

Even the CCP’s official explanation about the balloon is a troll. They claimed it was a “civilian airship” merely conducting innocuous meteorological research that “deviated far from its planned course” due to strong winds. Of course, due to the PRC’s national strategy of Civil-Military Fusion in service of the Party’s military, there is no real civilian research program. And for the world’s most sophisticated techno-authoritarian state that boasts of its control and lack of errors, accidentally losing a valuable surveillance blimp the size of three school buses over the territory of your number one rival is quite the accident.

According to news reports, the Pentagon got ready to shoot the balloon down when it became a hazard to commercial aviation, dropping in altitude to 35,000 feet.

Then they did it, and the debris rained down along the South Carolina coast six miles from its shore. News reports say that the Navy and Coast Guard formed a protective perimeter around it so that a salvage ship can come fish it out.

Instead of laughing at gringo's silly effort to get its hands on the Chinese so-called weather balloon, China is enraged and vows to get tough.

Must be some losses, right? After all, they are vowing to retaliate, right?

How much does a weather balloon cost?

According to Quora, the highest cost listed for the latex or neoprene devices is $900. The price can go below $20, too, based on a search of Google.

So this weather balloon cost is at tops $900 and since the Chinese are so honest and everything, shouldn't they be laughing at the U.S. for wasting its resources on retrieving a cheapie weather balloon?

If the U.S. were run by someone smarter than Joe Biden, say, President Trump, Trump would smile at the Chicoms and tell them he takes them at their word about this whole thing being about a weather ballon, sending over a real $900 weather balloon over Chinese territory for them to shoot down and then calling it even-steven.

But more likely, there something in that so-called weather balloon that they'd rather the U.S. not see.

Their phony claims to weather balloons, coupled with their rage and vows for retaliation pretty well tells us this wasn't a weather balloon, it was something very valuable to them, as Gordon Chang notes:

What can a balloon at 60,000 feet observe that all these other assets cannot? Let’s remember that #China is paying a dear price for the incident, so it must have thought the intelligence or propaganda was worth it. https://t.co/3kmSBNibDv

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) February 5, 2023

Now that that's out of the way, maybe the Pentagon can let everyone know what's there, should they not botch the job of recovering the rubble. Biden would likely not be up for that as a congenitally weak president who's quite likely compromised by the Chicoms, but a sleeping giant here in the states would. 

China's been feeling high and mighty these days, talking as though they give the orders, when they should be simpering away with their tails between their legs.

They will keep at it.

It's time to hit back hard because this was a total provocation, a Chinese middle finger to the U.S. as Heinrichs puts it. 

Image: Twitter screen shot