A Chinese spy balloon flying over US airspace in Montana indicates the country is preparing its citizens for war, an expert on US-China relations told Fox News Digital.
“He #ChineseSpyBalloon shows us that #China is preparing to go to war,” Gordon Chang, a columnist and author who has written several books on China, tweeted Friday, following the discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon over Montana the previous day.
“We know what the Chinese are doing,” Chang explained. “They are engaged in the fastest military buildup since World War II. They are trying to impose sanctions on their regime and, more sinister, they are preparing the civilians of China for war.”
Chang pointed to a recent move by Chinese President Xi Jinping shortly after he was appointed to his third term as secretary-general at the National Congress in October, when he appointed what is known as the “war cabinet.”
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Chinese President Xi Jinping continues to attend the 29th APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Bangkok on November 19, 2022.
(Ju Peng/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“China is preparing to go to war,” said Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China.” “It is engaged in extremely provocative and dangerous activities on its periphery and war could come anytime, anywhere.”
Chang told Fox News Digital that decades of inaction to combat Chinese aggression in Taiwan, the South China Sea and around the world have created an atmosphere in which China does not fear the repercussions of acts of aggression, such as the balloon spy that has been hovering over the United States for days.
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Gordon Chang told Fox News Digital that China is preparing its citizens for war.
(FoxNews)
“The United States is so much more powerful than China from almost every perspective, and yet the Chinese don’t see it that way,” Chang said. “The Chinese see that they can do whatever they want because we’ve told them they can do that.”
Chang continued: “The Chinese have engaged in a number of activities that violate our sovereignty, and some of those activities constitute acts of war and we didn’t respond. And it’s not just not responding in February 2023, it’s not responding in the course of decades. So, of course, the Chinese have this mindset right now. We have created the conditions for the next great war in history.”
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A balloon flies in the sky over Billings, Montana, on February 1, 2023 in this image obtained from social media.
(Returners)
China confirmed on Friday that it owns a surveillance balloon it says is a civilian research craft that was blown off course by prevailing winds, adding that it regrets the incident.
Chang told Fox News Digital that there is “no way” that explanation is true, and the Biden administration has faced heavy criticism from Republicans, including former President Trump, for not shooting down the ship that Chang says would have done if he had been on Biden. position.
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The United States has so far chosen not to shoot down the balloon, which is flying over a state that is home to several US military installations and intercontinental ballistic missile fields, arguing that doing so could endanger people on the ground.
“The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States at this time,” said Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said in a statement. “The US government, including NORAD, continues to closely follow and monitor it. The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not pose a military or physical threat to people on the ground. Instances of this type of globe activity have been previously observed in recent years.
“Once the balloon was detected, the US government took immediate action to protect against the collection of sensitive information.”
