…a balloon— at once menacing and farcically Zeppelin-retro —…It is clumsy enough to symbolize China’s immense capacity to blunder — a tendency that President Biden’s team has lately exploited, to devastating effect.
Two years ago, when Biden assumed office, China believed that it was overtaking the United States technologically, intimidating it militarily, and winning the race for global respect and popularity against an exhausted, divided America. Today, in a remarkable turnaround…the Biden team has inflicted a series of humiliations on its chief rival.
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…a spy balloon that is both ineffective and embarrassingly visible.
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Now that China’s comic-book spy balloon has been so vividly exposed, it is tempting to seize the chance to inflict yet another humiliation on Beijing. Political voices on the right demand that the balloon be shot down, presumably for the theatrical fun of it.
