• “Beijing is probably trying to signal to Washington: ‘While we want to improve ties, we are also ever ready for sustained competition, using any means necessary’, without severely inflaming tensions.
• “And what better tool for this than a seemingly innocuous balloon,” independent air-power analyst He Yuan Ming told the BBC.
• Balloons are one of the oldest forms of surveillance technology. The Japanese military used them to launch incendiary bombs in the US during World War Two. They were also widely used by the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Tagged: China