Balloons that Inflate Lies

It was a hectic weekend in the United States, as the Department of Defense of that country shot down a weather balloon of Chinese origin. The event occurred on the East Coast, after the flying object crossed North America from coast to coast. The supposed discovery was framed in the usual trappings of Washington’s victimization, almost faithful to the script of a Hollywood film, in which it’s usually aliens, terrorists or Russians, who put the freedom and democracy of the "American way of life" at risk”. Two heroic fighter jets accomplished the mission and, through missiles, saved the free world from the Chinese threat.

The incident would likely go down in anecdotes if it hadn’t been for the White House's immediate accusation of China that the alleged weather balloon was relatively a spy tool, which the Department of Defense was monitoring on its way. They did not shoot it down before because in their initial evaluation, it did not represent any threat to aviation or national security, in addition to considering that it was safer to attack it in open water to avoid any damage to its remains on U.S. soil.

And here the first doubts come forth: how can a spy balloon not be a threat? And how come they didn't detect it before entering the national territory, they who have the best satellite systems? And would China, with an even technological development of that of the United States, really use against its main enemy such a basic and careless means of espionage as a weather balloon the size of three buses?

Of course none of it is believable. However, these are questions that should be ignored when you want to hinder understanding processes between the two nations, which would have started months ago with a presidential-level meeting in Beijing. Henceforth, bilateral tensions, especially in the economic and geopolitical order, due to the meddling of the United States in the Taiwan domestic affairs, have conditioned what should be an understanding between the two world economic powers.

It will be a matter of time to determine who benefits more from the revival of these tensions, but it’s not unreasonable to remember that the United States is headed for a 2024 presidential election, in which the international projection of each Party has greater weight at the domestic level. And in this regard, Democrats are constantly questioned by Republicans, for allegedly being weak in the face of foreign threats. Nothing is further from reality, but it’s a criterion that can be validated in public opinion.

In any case, we repeat that it’s still premature to pull the curtain on the event. The truth is that the pretext of the balloon to send backwards bilateral political issues is reminiscent of certain acoustic attacks that coincidentally favored the discourse and political strategy of former President Donald Trump. No one is surprised that both Republicans and Democrats use similar strategies.

As the fact clarifies, possibly in as much time as has happened with the incidents in Havana, we will see how other springs of the geopolitics of both countries move. But no one doubts that, to China's strategic estimate, come before the fact that every four years a new angle is at play, in U.S. politics and it certainly takes precedence. That’s where balloons are inflated with lies.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff