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China mocks ‘laughably juvenile’ President Biden for shooting down balloons with fighter jets: ‘Hysterical’

February 12, 2023 | | Print Article

As President Biden orders fighter jets to shoot down a foreign spy balloon and mysterious objects over Alaska and Canada, China is laughing at him.

Chinese Communist Party-owned news outlets are blasting Biden in blistering opinion pieces, calling the U.S. response to the incursions “hysterical” and Biden’s orders to take them down “laughably juvenile.”

Both outlets insist the Chinese balloon was nothing more than a civilian weather craft and both say popping balloons and unknown objects with fighter jets and missiles only served to make the U.S. military look weaker.

In China Daily, China’s largest news outlet, journalist Chen Weihua called the United States “immature and irresponsible.”

“The Joe Biden administration’s handling of the Chinese balloon case last week was meant to showcase the United States’ strategic strength amid fierce attacks by Republicans and the low approval ratings of US officials,” he wrote. “But instead it has shown to the world how immature and irresponsible — indeed hysterical — the US has been in dealing with the case.”

“For at least a week, the whole US has been obsessed with the Chinese civilian balloon, as US politicians and media projected it as a grave threat to US national security,” Weihua wrote. “But they should realize that it does not make sense for China to spy on the US using a balloon the size of three school buses while modern surveillance satellites can do a much better job, and surreptitiously too.”

The CCP mouthpiece then targeted the United States’ own spy crafts.

“Speaking of spying, no country employs surveillance more widely and aggressively than the US, including its frequent military surveillance flights near China’s shores, which even people such as former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski regarded as provocative,” Weihua stated. “How would the US respond if China were to conduct frequent surveillance flights off the coast of California, New York or Florida?”

Were it not for “Republicans, from new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to Senator Marco Rubio” who “hijacked” Biden’s decisions by calling the president’s response “weak,” Weihua argued, things might have played out differently.

“The fierce attacks came just days before Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, at a time when public opinions are not in his favor,” he noted.

Weihua continued:

All these have prompted the Biden administration to overreact to the balloon incident, including dispatching an F-22 fighter jet on Saturday to shoot down the civilian balloon with an AIM 9X Sidewinder missile worth $400,000 as well as “postponing” a trip of Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing.

That has set a very bad precedent for the two countries in terms of handling similar cases in the future. Just remember, China didn’t fire at the real US military spy plane, EP3, when it made an emergency landing in China’s Hainan island on April 1, 2001, without any permission from the Chinese authorities.

 

“Resorting to force and shooting down a civilian research balloon that veered off course is clearly not a responsible and proper way of handling such a case. As the world’s two largest economies, the US and China should increase communication and mutual understanding so that they can better handle such cases in the future,” the journalist concluded. “The US should have dealt with the balloon case in a calm and responsible way without letting it being hijacked by the bitter domestic partisan politics because a conflict between the two countries would spell disaster for the entire world.”

The op-ed also ran in the People’s Daily, another CCP-owned media source.

On the same day Weihua’s story was published, President Biden shot down a “high altitude” object that has yet to be identified over Alaska.

The Global Times, a hardline Chinese outlet, ran the headline: “Another week, another juvenile farce in the US’ skies.”

“Less than a week after a US fighter jet fired a missile and brought down a Chinese balloon, an utterly harmless civilian airship designed for meteorological use, the US shot down an unidentified object around Alaska on Friday at the order of President Joe Biden,” the Global Times wrote. “Stuck in typical partisanship and ‘political correctness,’ orders from the White House are getting laughably juvenile.”

The over-the-top response, the outlet claims, was Biden’s failed attempt at saving face.

“The shooting down of the object can be argued as Biden’s attempt to reverse the tide of criticisms against his administration for taking down the Chinese balloon too late,” Global Times stated. “This time, Biden wants to showcase that he can make a decisive and timely action, even without knowing almost anything. This is juvenile.”

The outlet mercilessly mocked Biden for sending F-22s to down a balloon, arguing that, “instead of making the US Air Force look mighty, the missions only made the US a laughingstock.”

“The US did make a strong case that the F-22 is invincible, when its enemy are balloons,” the outlet quipped.

“What can Washington prove by intercepting a bunch of balloons? Nothing other than its ignorance and incompetence,” it declared. “Unfortunately, this is the way the US propagandizes – bragging about shooting down balloons.”

It then offered a warning for Ukraine and allies of the United States.

“The US has the opportunity to confront Russia on the battlefield. But it keeps stepping back, confirming it supports Ukraine but will not get involved in a direct confrontation with Russia,” Global Times stated.

“Is US strong or weak?” the outlet asked. “It looks pretty damn tough in the face of balloons, civilian airships, and other innocuous objects. But in the face of real battlefield, US’ choice is to exhaust others. Can’t its allies see it?”

Melissa Fine
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