Former MI6 Chief: Spy Balloon Incident Reveals Zero Trust in US–China Relationship

A suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts toward the ocean after being shot down off the South Carolina coast in Surfside Beach, S.C., on Feb. 4, 2023. Randall Hill/Reuters

The recent spy balloon incident showed that there is now no trust between the United States and the Chinese communist regime, the UK’s former spy chief said on Tuesday.

Sir Alex Younger, former head of the MI6, said Beijing has underestimated the potential impact of the incident.

Since Feb. 4, the U.S. and Canadian military have shot down a Chinese balloon and three other flying objects in North American airspace. Another Chinese balloon has been spotted over Latin America.

Beijing insisted the balloons are civilian weather balloons, and later claimed that U.S. balloons flew past China more than 10 times since last year. White House denied the allegation.

Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon that was downed by the United States over the weekend over U.S. territorial waters off the coast of Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Feb. 5, 2023. U.S. Fleet Forces/U.S. Navy photo/Handout via Reuters

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said at a Feb. 13 press conference that China “has a high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that’s connected to the People’s Liberation Army.”

Kirby said the Chinese “surveillance balloons have crossed over dozens of countries on multiple continents around the world,” including the “closest allies and partners” of the United States, but they are hard to detect, therefore were “not picked up by previous administrations or other countries.”

Asked on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme whether the incident is a “really serious moment” in the U.S.–China relationship and the relationship between Beijing and the West, Younger said it is “regrettably” the case.

Referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s speech last week, in which Xi spoke of the so-called “Chinese style modernisation” that “shattered the myth of ’modernisation equals Westernisation,'” Younger said Xi had “made it very, very clear that he sees China’s path as been different” and Xi is risking the interdependence between China and the West.

Xi was “vaunting increasing divergence and self-sufficiency as a matter of national priority and in a way that buttresses his Communist Party control,” he said, adding that it is “inevitably creating a reaction” from the West, with the United States also seeing risks in the ever-high interdependence.

“Essentially, the economic relationship is becoming politicized, and trust is plummeting to zero. And this whole balloon conversation just demonstrates to you how there is no trust in that relationship,” he said, noting that the tech divergence conversation will “rapidly deepen” if it turns out U.S. technology has been used in the sensors found in the balloon.

While it’s too early to know what the fallout of the incident will be, Younger said he believes the Chinese regime has made a “deep mistake” underestimating the impact.

Xi last year proposed a Global Security Initiative (GSI), which Younger said is about promoting China’s role in safeguarding the indivisible rights and interconnected security of developing countries “in contrast to sort of U.S. recklessness,” but the balloon incident is a “gross and really visible transgression of the sovereignty of many nations” that flew “ absolutely in the face” of the GSI narrative, he said.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrives to attend the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC summit in Bangkok on Nov. 19, 2022. Jack Taylor/Pool Photo via AP

Younger said he believes the West, particularly the United States, will “rightly take the opportunity to point out the manifest hypocrisy” that the balloon program involves and will be “politically motivated to make a big fuss and I think that’s sensible.”

Commenting on China’s economic prospect, Younger said he believes the end of the “mad” zero-COVID-19 policy would bring significant growth, but China’s future will be constrained by the “process of centralization and re-politicization of the economy” and the country’s “very difficult demographic situation.”

Asked whether the UK should take a tougher stance on China, Younger said Britons “need to wake up” to the systemic competition between the West and communist-controlled China, and “set absolute limits on our tolerance of dealing with those who behave in an unacceptable way.”

“We need to recognize when a competition we need to respond to it. We need to make ourselves stronger, and we need to find ways of transcending the inevitable risks that come out of this confrontations,” he said.

British Defence Secretary on Sunday said the UK and its allies will review the security implications of the Chinese balloons, calling the development “another sign of how the global threat picture is changing for the worse.”