Herman Tiu Laurel
The NPR (National Public Radio) is a quasi-autonomous, government-funded nonprofit media outlet created by the U.S. federal government. On February 16, 2023 its headline blared “’Biden says the 3 aerial objects shot down were not Chinese spy balloons’… President Biden will soon speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the surveillance balloon the U.S. military shot down early this month.”
On the February 18, 2023 edition of the NPR one major headlines was “’Blinken meets with China’s top diplomatic in first meeting since the balloon controversy’… U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, on Saturday. It is the highest level of contact between the two countries since the “discovery” of a Chinese surveillance balloon over U.S. airspace earlier this month.”
We will recall how the “spy balloon” saga started February 4 when the first balloon was spotted flying towards Alaska from the Bering Sea, meandering to Canada and back into the U.S. and out the coast of South Carolina where it was shot down. China insisted it was just a wayward meterorological balloon while another report said the first balloon was not even Chinese but from an American company.
I remember writing about that confusion of the first balloon which Reuters has insisted in its report was an American balloon, but the the confusion got even more confused as other balloons popped in the continuing reports and balloons tarversing South America and other parts of the world became part of the global hyperventilaiton of the “balloon mania” – only now in the middle of February all to be shot down by the the White House itself.
After deflating the spy balloon mania and the cancelled visit of U.S. Secretary Blinken tyo China, Blinken finally meets China’s top diplomatc Wang Yi in Munich, Germany. The Munich Security Conference is held annually to assess the state of the E.U. and its trans-Atlantic relations with the U.S. I remember my last articles on Munich Security Conferenc sometime 2020 when its theme was “Westlessness” – the sense of drift and abandonment of Europe. Europe is even more lost today.
There are lessons to be learned from the “spy balloon” sage, the first being to be very careful about U.S. information war operations which the spy balloon tall tale was. Thinking people were alert immediately to the flaws of the story, asking questions such as why would any party, most of all China which has 300 Baidou satellite a third of those being with military applications, need to use an unsteerable balloon for intel operations?
To keen observers the diversionary purpose of the spy balloon story is obvious; however, the question that has yet to be answered is – diverison from what? The first theory is that it was used as an excuse to scuttle the special Blinken bilateral talks requested by the U.S. with China agreed upon at the 2022 G20 meet in Bali, Indonesia to resume critical negotaitons on climate change and such critical issues suspended by China in retaliation to the provocative Pelosi visit that earlier that year.
Another theory is that the spy balloon story was floated anticipating the Seymour Hersh exposé of the direct hand of President Joe Biden, circumventing U.S. laws going around the requirement of congressional consultation in covert action, giving direct instructions to executive officials Blinken, Nuland and Sullivan to use the U.S. Navy to bomb of Nord Stream 2. The spy balloon caper did not stop the exposé but may have diffused the impact somewhat.
The whole balloon escapade is a lesson for Filipinos not to believe U.S. media too readily, to be on guard for decpetion and diversionary intent of U.S. news operations. Our media in the Philippines is part of the Anglphone media world, and infused with U.S. influence operations. One U.S. concoction in the Philippines is the reportage of ABS-CBN’s Chiara Zambrano in April 2021 claiming she was chased by Chinese Coast Guard at Ayungin shoal.
The story was subsequently exposed by then-defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and presidential adviser Sal Panelo as fake news. The Pinoy Exposé tabloid of former NPC president Paul Guiterrez exposed it as an ISW (Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. NGO) paid project. Another is the U.S. Simularlity report in 2021 in conjuction with the Albert Del Rosario Institute and Stratbase webinar in 2021 reporting Chinese vessels spewing human sewage in the South China Sea complete with photos, the photos were later exposed by the DND’s Lorenzana as photo from Australia taken in 2014.
The latest U.S. concocted fake news fed through the Philippine “Amboy” channels is the “blinding laser light” controversy, only the stupid can believe a laser pointed from hundreds of meters away can hit the bullseye pupils of a viewer. Exposés of such fake news have deflated US credibility and confidence of U.S. “Asian allies.”