The mystery of the China surveillance balloon shot down over the USA which has caused a major diplomatic fallout is still unsolved. Was it a weather balloon which winds blew off course as Beijing claimed? It hardly makes sense as a spy craft, since with the proliferation of spy satellites and unmanned drones, such a balloon is largely obsolete. There is a thought that it was China’s way of putting Joe Biden on guard.
Last November Biden and Xi at the Bali summit agreed to improve relations by having the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visit, the first such invitation for five years. That has been summarily cancelled by Washington.
The USA/China 1912 relationship chart indicates that a diplomatic freeze is likely with tr Pluto opposition the composite Saturn picking up from February 12th (this month) on and off till late 2024. With bad tempered words through June 2023 and February 2024. And a nervy mood in July 2023 also extending on and off into 2024. The USA/China 1949 relationship chart shows much the same.
That mirrors the Biden/Xi relationship chart which indicates a severe disruption now till mid March and again late April into early May. With aggravations peaking in May/July 2023 and February 2024. Tensions will run high through 2023 with further separations in 2024.
Biden has Neptune on the IC through Beijing on his astrocartography which does not suggest a military hotspot. His red-flag zones are Moscow and Iran.
Fascinating facts: Spy balloons were first deployed during the French revolutionary wars and balloons operated by spies with binoculars were used during the American civil war to detect enemy troop movements. They were used more recently extensively during the cold war.
I read today that these balloons are part of a fleet spanning five continents. They are 200 feet tall. The hot-headed hot air of Jupiter in Aries may be part of the symbolism? Also, it occurs to me they make a marvellous distraction of some kind – “look! over there! a fleet of 200 foot high Chinese balloons!”. Classic magic trick territory…..
I’d also thought that satellites could do better, but it turns out that balloons “can pick up radio, cellular and other transmissions that cannot be detected from space”…and that the US strategic command “have been remaking communications with nuclear weapons sites” (NY Times).
Even if the balloon was totally harmless in itself, it could very well be China’s way of testing US reactions. We now learn that this has already happened three times before, but the US never detected those previous intrusions at the time, and China certainly didn’t mention it or apologize.
Once may be accidental. Four times is not.
Liz M., many thanks. It was indeed the C-47 “gooney bird.”
CNN posted an analysis of three balloon incursions while Trump was president. For a wonder, no one in the Pentagon or other military agency reported the incursion.
Smacks to me of “you don;t ever report what you’ve seen to the Drompf”.
Marjorie, a thousand years ago in the Vietnam War, I was married to a U.S. Air Force Pilot. In combat, he flew a WWII plane, so old and obsolete it was never bothered by enemy combatants; but it was loaded with ultra-sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment. While then-President Nixon was telling the world that we were not “in Cambodia,” my husband was spying daily on Cambodia from this antiquated, clunky plane. After he mustered out, he went on to fly SAC EC-135s. I guess my point is, it would be most interesting to see what is inside those balloons, and to know who might be directing them. Wish I could remember the call sign of that old clunker; what I do remember is that it was one of the saddest-looking planes in the Air Force, but it was doing an essential espionage mission. Guess it’s okay to talk about this finally.
Probably a C-47. The Gooney Bird. Dad was there as well as a pilot.
This was not an honest mistake. The timing was a big finger to Biden and his administration to see what we would do. China was testing us for a reaction. China is flying one over south america. The fact that this thing hovered for quite some time over the missile silos in Montana should give anyone pause. These things can be steered and hover. The Pentagon can also jam the signal. The CCP talks out of both sides of their mouth. Meanwhile, every one is worried about the China Nuclear build up and in case you did not catch it they are building up their nuclear arsenal and are in the process of becoming armed to the teeth. Neptune is about clouding one’s vision, obstructing what is really going on, cannot see clearly. China is considered the biggest threat on the world stage, and they do not think about things the way we do. This was done with intent and purposeful timing. Testing the administration. Probing for weakness.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/05/what-s-driving-china-s-nuclear-buildup-pub-85106
During the Cold War spy planes, balloons etc were shot down a lot more often than people realise. Most of the time the fact was covered up by all the parties involved unless there was a political propaganda point being made. Given that situation what is probably significant about this event is not that it happened but that everything including the shooting down of the balloon was done so publicly.
“By Any Means Necessary: America’s Secret Air War in the Cold War” by William E Burrows gives an idea of how hot Cold War aerial spying could become.
It seems like a high-stakes flavor of road chicken. Testing the US if it has the moxie and the backbone to down something as simple as a “weather balloon”. It has been quiet from the Putin side of the table regarding eminent domain. “If our annexed territories are attacked, we consider it an attack on Russia itself”.
Go ahead, make my day.
Hi larryc. I’m actually willing to give China the benefit of the doubt, for now, at least until we find out what’s in the debris (if the US ever shares that information–I’m thinking that for political reasons it might continue to claim it was a surveillance balloon even if evidence is found to the contrary). A former Canadian ambassador to China from 2012 to 2016 has stated it is very rare for the Chinese government to express regret, and that “For once” he tends to believe the explanation that the balloon’s passage over North America was “an honest mistake”. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/china-canada-surveillance-balloon-1.6736300
Whatever the reason behind the balloon, it has certainly generated a lot more hot air than your average balloon, most of it coming from politicians in the US and Canada. Hopefully things settle down and Blinken’s visit to Beijing is rescheduled.
Hi there. I grew up in the late 50’s and recall the duck-n-cover training in grade school. Was always suspicious of Soviet and PRC activities, even now…tho I wish I wasn’t so paranoid. Esp with the high stake gambling over Ukraine, what’s the next Jack-in-the-Box?
Best regards!
Sorry Larry, got busy. I have a life outside the Internet, lol. I do appreciate your fears dating back to your childhood, and I think that fear is usually also behind the conspiracy theories that Marjorie is fed up with along with its twin ignorance. But I think we should not get too carried away or make assumptions in the absence of evidence. And if wrongdoing is uncovered then hopefully it can be resolved through diplomatic rather than military channels. There’s enough killing going on in the world these days. Hopefully the heat can be turned down on this incident and the US-China talks rescheduled. Cheers!
Forgot to say, thank you, Marjorie, for your analysis of the impact on US-China relations. Very interesting.
I set a chart using the BBC’s time for when the balloon went down at 14:49 EST (19:59 GMT) and without the exact coordinates I used the nearby community of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for the location. This puts the planet Neptune at 23°42′ Pisces closely conjunct the MC at 22°47′ Pisces. I also happened to notice Neptune is the final dispositor of this chart. I thought this was all pretty appropriate since according to The Rulership Book (Rex Bills), balloons are ruled by Neptune. Neptune’s position is within minutes of last year’s Jupiter-Neptune conjunction at 23°48′ Pisces which has to mean something although I’m not sure what, lol. The Sun and Uranus were in a close square yesterday, both at the critical 15 degrees of fixed signs which is roughly in between last fall’s and this spring’s lunar eclipses at 16 Taurus and 14 Scorpio respectively.
Sorry, Jupiter-Neptune conjunction on April 12, 2023 was 23°58′ Pisces, not 23°48′ Pisces.
On a purely practical point, these balloons can hover over selected locations, unlike satellites. They can be controlled’ from their command centre.