O, wad some Power the giftie gie us, to surveil oursels as ithers see us.
The Washington Post noted, referring to the Chinese balloon, on Feb. 3 that “Experts in national security and aerospace said the craft appears to share characteristics with high-altitude balloons used by developed countries around the world for weather forecasting, telecommunications and scientific research.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/03/how-spy-balloons-work/ )
But let’s hypothesize that China wanted to take a shot at canceling the very meeting between Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Secretary of State Blinken that China had been looking to for an improvement in relations; and thus that the highly visible observation balloon from China was traversing North America intentionally in the days just before that meeting.
