US Shooting Down Chinese Balloon Is Part of Staged Global Conflict

Despite the ideological chasm between a liberal U.S. and a dictatorial China, both share enough interests to justify peaceful coexistence.

Exactly 40 years ago in her hit song “99 Red Balloons,” Nena sang about how a misunderstanding over balloons started a world war. Things will not reach that point with the Chinese flying object that the U.S. Air Force has now shot down over the Atlantic. But the spherical bone of contention is symptomatic of the shattered relations between the superpowers: an inflated conflict with a lot of hot air that nonetheless can turn dangerous.

It is a mystery why China would provoke the U.S. with such a visible spying mechanism that offers hardly any advantage over its many satellites. It is just as ineffective for the White House to have shot down a balloon that had already spent a week traveling over the United States.

There Can Be Only 1 Winner

But President Joe Biden is under strong domestic pressure to take a hard line when it comes to Beijing, which is itself becoming increasingly aggressive. Both sides are staging a huge geopolitical conflict in which there can be only one winner. This approach is not just destroying a decades-long relationship that has been productive for both sides. It is also inflicting political and economic damage around the world.

Despite the ideological chasm between a liberal United States and a dictatorial China, both share enough interests to justify peaceful coexistence. The U.S. does not question the power monopoly of China’s communists, and China, unlike the former Soviet Union, aims neither to export its political system nor rule the world. Even in the heated debate over Taiwan, it is possible to reach an agreement that everyone can live with.

Many developments are disrupting this status quo. China’s ruler, Xi Jinping, has concluded that economic ascendancy is threatening the dominance of the Communist Party, and he is responding domestically with repression and internationally by invoking the image of the political enemy. Neither aggressive trade and investment policies nor provocative wolf-warrior diplomacy are in China’s national interest. But when leadership in Beijing strives not for its own well-being but its place in the geopolitical sun, like Wilhelmine Germany once did, then that seriously presents a challenge to the U.S.*

Fear of Economic Decline

On top of that is the fear of an economic decline attributed not to the United States’ own failures but to Beijing breaking the global trade rules. That this fear exists is undeniable. But only a mix of domestic politics and foolishness can explain why, after Donald Trump, even Biden has only managed to respond by demolishing the basic rules of free trade.

On a political level, there is still hope that this conflict, unlike the one with Russia, only amounts to bluster. It would be a positive sign for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to carry out his canceled visit to Beijing soon. Things are looking less good for the global economy. The economic cold war between the U.S. and China will make everyone poorer.

*Editor’s note: Wilhelmine Germany refers to the period of German history between 1890 and 1918 embracing the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the German Empire.