Could Taiwan have shot it down? And if it could have, should it have?
The defense ministry of Taiwan reports that it recently observed a Chinese spy balloon in the Taiwan Strait, “along with a large-scale movement of military aircraft and ships.”
Per Associated Press (December 8, 2023):
The ministry said the balloon passed southwest of the northern port city of Keelung on Thursday night, then continued east before disappearing, possibly into the Pacific Ocean….
Taiwan has threatened to shoot down such balloons, but the ministry did not say what, if any, action was taken. It said the balloon was flying at an altitude of approximately 6,400 meters (21,000 feet).
It also said 26 Chinese military aircraft and 10 navy ships were detected in the 24 hours before 6 a.m. Friday. Fifteen of the aircraft crossed the median line that is an unofficial divider between the sides, but which Beijing refuses to recognize, it said. Some also entered Taiwan’s self-declared air defense identification zone outside the island’s airspace, which encompasses the 160-kilometer (100-mile)-wide Taiwan Strait.
What might make Taiwanese authorities hesitate about opening fire on Chinese spy balloons traversing the Taiwan Strait is the simultaneous presence in the Strait of all the Chinese military planes and military ships that China keeps sending toward Taiwan to bully the Taiwanese and maybe influence their votes in the fast-approaching presidential election (being held January 13, 2024).
China has also sent at least one such spy balloon to spy on the United States. This was a balloon that our officials and the world knew about for days as it meandered across the country and sought to gather information on various U.S. military sites. (The Pentagon claims that it foiled these efforts.) As the balloon drifted, the Biden administration waited and waited before finally ordering the military to shoot it down. But this balloon had not undertaken its journey across the United States in the company of Chinese military planes. And the country that had sent the balloon was thousands of miles away from the United States, not right across the street, or Strait.
