Good Monday evening. This is Daniel Allott with The Hill's Top Opinions.
What was the purpose of the spy balloon that China sailed over the U.S. and Canada last week? "At a minimum," writes China policy expert BRADLEY THAYER, "the balloon had been gathering meteorological intelligence…"
Beijing wants us to believe that explanation. But Thayer thinks the balloon was more likely "a component of China's political warfare campaign against the U.S. and its allies."
According to Thayer, that the balloon spent a week drifting across the U.S. before it was detected told Beijing that "U.S. airspace can be penetrated and we are vulnerable to attack."
But Thayer, who is director of China policy at the Center for Security Policy, believes the balloon incident provides the U.S. with an opportunity. He writes:
"When the Soviet Union's Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, orbited over U.S. homes in 1957, the Eisenhower administration was excoriated for allowing the U.S. to fall behind the Soviets in technological development. So, it would appear that China has provided the Biden administration with its own 'Sputnik moment' — if it chooses to act upon it — to enlist a whole-of-society response against the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party."
President Biden must "publicize the Chinese Communist Party's record and explain why China has become a threat to the world," including through its consistent abuse of human rights and genocide in Xinjiang.
"This reconnaissance balloon can be useful to awaken and mobilize Americans to the threats Beijing has made," Thayer writes, "but the Biden administration must act with dispatch."
Read Thayer's op-ed here.
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