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U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

cnbc.com

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Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#401

Post by roamerz »

pxc wrote: post #102

I am so tired of China being used to stoke American jingoism, of politicians making a contest of who is really 'tough on China' and, most horrifyingly, of seeing other USians online practically salivate as they fantasize about a war with China. It's some cold war boogieman horseshit. And it's depressing to watch here on Hacker News, too, any comments that question the beating of those war drums go dead. Yesterday I h…

I cringe at the thought of war with anyone as well. How else though would you deal with an authoritarian non democratic country who wants nothing more than world domination? It started with Hong Kong and next in their sights is Taiwan. People like Xi Jinping only understand strength and view diplomacy as a tool to bide time until the are militarily strong enough to ensure victory. I feel for the citizens that pay the price of war. My non expert opinion only.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#404

Post by random314 »

ryandrake wrote: post #339
yohanshi wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a taiwanese who lurks on hacker news for many years but when I saw this post I had to make an account. You are dead wrong, China is an enemy of the free world, pure and simple. South Koreans and Ukrainians would agree with me here. Especially since China has declared no limit friendship with russia

It is possible to believe both "China bad" and "we should not go to war with them". That's the key part I think OP has noticed with (mostly US) western media coverage of China lately: It's not just "China bad" but it this preparatory drumbeat of war that is written between the lines. There are a lot of countries Americans might consider bad. But the news media isn't subtly and constantly hinting that we might want to…

Moreover it's not like China is going around overturning democracies and freedom in Chile, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Bangladesh etc. How much worse can China be than "the leader of the free world".

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#405

Post by nemo44x »

scotty79 wrote: post #206
WillPostForFood wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US and Europe brought China into the WTO, gave it most favored nations trading status, transferred trillions in technology, and financed the modernization of the country. Pretty good friends, IMO. But it is not been reciprocated, and is now going bad. The crushing of the democracy movement in Hong Kong was a wake up call as to the intentions of China going forward.

> But it is not been reciprocated, How was it not reciprocated? Whole western world benefited from the cheap Chinese labor for more than a decade. I'd say we helped them economically and they helped us economically. When it comes to politics we don't see eye to eye. As for Hong-Kong they are introducing their politics there. Nothing we can do about it. And we are doing exactly nothing about it. US openly calls China…

Agree 100%. It’s amazing people actually believe this. They’ve built unlimited shit for us for next to nothing whine innovating ways to make it cheaper and we knowingly buy more while complaining they aren’t liberal enough. Meanwhile a far greater percentage of their citizens are happy with the country compared to anywhere in the West.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#406

Post by NegativeLatency »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #171
cududa wrote: post #25

I had seen reports that the balloon was the length of 3-4 school busses but it appears that was misreported and just repeated. The PAYLOAD was the length of 3-4 school busses. I haven’t been following this much until today/ vaguely aware as an amusing background story. But, has anyone seen high res photos of the balloon or someone doing back of the envelope math on the size of the balloon portion? I ask simply becaus…

It looks like the large size is mostly just solar panels (I'm assuming that's what they were; they could have been 'sails' to help steer it) and their scaffolding. From some of the available photos there's two wings, each with eight panels. There's a tradeoff between the weight of the solar panels vs simply using batteries (though batteries don't like the cold, and solar panels do), so I think maybe they were hoping…

It could’ve actually been a “science experiment” just launched at the behest of the military as a test like you say. So they’d have plausible deniability like the “fishing boats” in the South China Sea

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#409

Post by themodelplumber »

ceejayoz wrote: post #403
ipnon wrote: post #336

This is technically the first combat kill by the F-22.

I wonder if the pilot gets to paint a balloon silhouette on his plane.

To say nothing of the nicknames and jokes they'll hear for the rest of their life....

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#410

Post by amatecha »

dendrite9 wrote: post #321
amelius wrote: post #114

So they waited until the balloon was over sea. This raises the question: why didn't the military see it coming and destroy it before it crossed the border?

I posted this link earlier but it was tracked. Here is a flight path of Canadian fighters checking the balloon out as it crossed towards Montana. https://twitter.com/steffanwatkins/status/162136299808111001... The link was in this longer, and good article: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/chinas-spy-balloon-ove...

Oh wow, that's messed up. Kind of irritating to see the thing was being closely tracked all through BC and just... nothing? Nice...
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