The debris could be found up to seven miles away from where it splashed into the water. The only thing they really need to track is that crash was the payload which is of course the stuff they want to study. Ros, what's the chance that when that thing hit the water, like all of its electronics just got fried or maybe it had a self-destruct setting? "That's entirely possible because again, this seems to have been quite an advanced Chinese surveillance balloon," she says.
What started as a curiosity—a Chinese balloon Washington says was equipped with surveillance equipment floating high above the US—now threatens to worsen the already tense rivalry between two world powers.
China insists it was a civilian research balloon that had drifted off course. Its government responded with anger after President Joe Biden ordered the vessel shot down Saturday once it was safely off the coast of South Carolina.
What information can a balloon like that collect? And what does this incident mean for US-China relations? Rosalind Mathieson, who oversees Bloomberg’s government and political coverage around the world, joins this episode to sort out what this was all about—and where things go from here.
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