The most curious part of this incident, rather, was the balloon’s very public appearance over continental US. People with standard cameras with zoom lenses could see it – and filmed it and put it on social media.
Unsurprisingly, this provoked a lot of popular comment and news coverage, which is very unusual in the world of spying and intelligence. Could stirring up a national debate in the US have been its purpose, or perhaps to see the political response? Because it was almost inevitable that the balloon would be seen.
The incident predictably provoked partisan political commentary about Chinese intentions. Trump, running for president yet again, naturally weighed in to stir up controversy. Hawks framed the balloon as an incursion, and this very public incident will only harden the congealing anti-Chinese consensus in Washington, especially in Congress.
The most famous analogous incident is the American use of high-altitude U-2 spy planes over the Soviet Union during the early years of the Cold War. The Soviets managed to shoot down a U-2 and stage a show trial of its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, in 1960.
Like China last week, the first American response was to claim that aircraft was on a weather operation.
In 1962, Cuba shot down another U-2 in the midst of the missile crisis. Similarly, the US routinely flies surveillance planes near the legal airspace limits of North Korea and China. One of those planes was struck by a Chinese fighter jet in 2001 and its crew captured.