TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A U.S. Indo-Pacific and Asian security expert said it's possible the Chinese balloon drifting over the U.S. got there by mistake.
Tweeting on Friday (Feb. 3), the nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Blake Herzinger said:
“I think we need to at least consider the possibility that this was a mistake, and that the CCP govt hasn’t commented (because) they’re not sure how to extricate themselves without looking stupid.”
Meanwhile, in an interview with CNA on Saturday (Feb. 4), Director of the Central Weather Bureau Cheng Ming-dean (鄭明典) said the bureau spotted a similar balloon over Taiwan about two years ago. Cheng said that in September 2021 and March 2022, the same balloon appeared over Taipei, staying there for about three hours.
Washington and Beijing have clashed over the incident, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken responding by canceling a planned trip to Beijing. It was hoped this would ease tensions between the two countries.
Other experts have also weighed in on the possibility the balloon ended up over the U.S. by accident. An atmospheric scientist said that westerly wind currents could have easily carried the balloon across the continental U.S. unintentionally. University of Washington professor Dan Jaffe said that it was “absolutely possible — not possible, likely” that the balloon had simply strayed off course.
A professor of International Relations from Tokyo’s Takusoku University also said that controlling the flight of this kind of balloon with accuracy was a difficult task. The balloon "was probably staying within a defined area trying to collect signal data," Professor Heigo Sato said, according to Nikkei.
But I think we need to at least consider the possibility that this was a mistake, and that the CCP govt hasn’t commented bc they’re not sure how to extricate themselves without looking stupid.
— Blake Herzinger (@BDHerzinger) February 3, 2023
Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at National University of Singapore offered another explanation, saying the balloon could have been an act of sabotage from an unexpected actor.
"It is also possible that the PLA is trying to torpedo Xi's effort to improve China's relations with the U.S. and its like-minded partners including Japan and Australia," said Thompson.