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Ian Explains: Who's winning the US-China space race?
Are we in a 21st-century space race with China? And if so, who’s winning? On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down China’s ambitious space program, which in the last few years has sent a rover to Mars, built a space station, and returned samples from the far side of the moon–something no country has done before. By 2035, it plans to build a lunar base with Russia on the moon’s south pole. However, intelligence experts are concerned China’s activity in space is more directly tied to its military than it’s letting on. A 1967 UN treaty bans military activity on the moon but not military activity in space altogether. The final frontier could be the next battleground. Can the US space program, boosted by private space companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, counter China’s lunar ambitions? Is this the end of the post-Soviet era of international space cooperation? Ian Bremmer breaks down the astronomical stakes of the next era of space exploration.
Look for the full episode, with an interview with former astronaut Senator Mark Kelly on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, airing on US public television (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Five Eyes look to the skies – and beyond
The truth is out there … that Canada participated in an international meeting on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, aka UFOs. It’s not exactly an episode of the “X-Files,” but it’s caught some attention.
Ottawa confirmed last week that it had taken part in the get-together at the Pentagon in May with its Five Eyes allies. Beyond that, everyone is keeping mum on the details of the confab, which was held to encourage coordination and information sharing on unidentified objects.
News of the meeting comes as former intelligence official and UAP task force member David Grusch hit the press to claim the US government had found “non-human” material “of exotic origin” and was keeping “intact and partially intact” alien crafts. The US government denies this, and Grusch’s claims have been dismissed by some as “crazy.”
Still, the government has reported hundreds of UAP encounters, including an unexplained flying orb. In February, a massive Chinese balloon crossed Canadian airspace and caught headlines in both countries; it was shot down by the US over the Atlantic Ocean.
Just because something is a UAP doesn’t mean it’s extraterrestrial. As Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the US Department of Defense says, “The majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO demonstrate mundane characteristics of balloons, unmanned aerial systems, clutter, natural phenomena, or other readily explainable sources.” The AARO was established in 2022 to detect and track “objects of interest” across land, sea, and air. No surprise, a lot of inexplicable phenomena can be explained as secret or run-of-the-mill military technology. But maybe not all of it.
A recent panel convened by NASA on the subject called for better civilian data on UAPs and the destigmatization of research in the field during a public meeting. It’s set to report its findings this summer. For its part, Canada has launched the “Sky Canada Project” under the aegis of the Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada to study UAP reports and make recommendations.
“In the context of UAPs being a broad and expansive topic, it’s going to be a continued topic of information sharing between the United States and Canada,” says Clayton Allen, US director at Eurasia Group. But this doesn’t necessarily imply extraterrestrial activity. “People always want to look for the fantastic when the ordinary will suffice,” he says.
Military and intelligence activity from foreign states is a more likely answer to UAP activity than aliens – meaning the phenomena are more likely to be products of Russian or Chinese military technology rather than from another planet. And that’s why we might expect regular, robust information sharing and briefings between the US and Canada – even above and beyond the Five Eyes.
“Five eyes is a sharing agreement without much by way of restrictions,” Allen says, “but the US and Canada have a unique relationship even within Five Eyes because of NORAD, so I’d expect a higher degree of information sharing between the two countries because we manage an air defense relationship for the continent.”
Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand discusses China's spy balloons & crisis in Haiti
On GZERO World, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand spoke with Ian Bremmer on two pressing issues for Canada: China's spy balloons and the crisis in Haiti.
Despite a suspected Chinese spy balloon being shot down over the Yukon and the need for Ottawa to have an Indo-Pacific strategy, Anand acknowledges that the world is becoming "increasingly dark" as Canada must keep "eyes wide open" on China.
In terms of Chinese apps, Canada has already banned TikTok on government devices and Anand has extended the same ban to her own children.=
Regarding Haiti, the US has asked Canada to send troops to help restore security, but Canada wants to focus on Haitian-led solutions. Anand admits it's difficult when all elected officials have fled the country, but believes throwing money at the problem won't make it go away. As she tells Bremmer, "we need to ensure we're taking a measured approach."
Note: this interview appeared in an episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on April 10, 2023, "What the US and Canada really want from each other"
Lessons from “balloon-gate”
By now you’ve heard and read plenty about the Chinese spy balloon that floated across the continental United States last week before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, so I’ll spare you the details. Absurd as it was, we’re not going to remember the incident in a couple of months. Heck, you probably don’t care already.
And that’s fair enough: The fact is the hullaballoo(n) was no big deal, for several reasons.
First, the balloon posed no threat to US national security. Washington and Beijing spy on each other all the time; China didn’t need a clunky unmanned orb to collect intelligence (they have satellites and, um, your cell phone for that). Second, this wasn’t the first time something like this has happened; the Pentagon confirmed at least four Chinese balloon incursions in the recent past, including three during the Trump administration. Third, the US had every right to shoot it down and little choice to do anything but once the incident went public. And fourth, President Joe Biden was probably right to wait to give the order until he did.
The outrage from all sides — the White House, Republicans, Beijing — is nothing but hot air. Nonetheless, the incident is interesting because of what it tells us about the world we live in.
So, what lessons can we draw from balloon-gate?
Xi makes mistakes — sometimes big and costly ones. There’s been lots of speculation about why China sent a slow-moving, 200-foot-tall balloon to hover over American nuclear silos (unlike most years, when it deploys Snoopy along 5th Ave), but I see only one reasonable explanation: miscalculation.
It was obviously no accident: The aircraft was reportedly “maneuverable,” but even if it wasn’t and Beijing’s claim that it was an “errant weather balloon” was true, the Chinese would have notified the US as soon as it went wayward. And it’s hard to imagine it was intentional, since Xi Jinping had nothing to gain from provoking the US now — not while China is in the middle of a charm offensive to court foreign investment and revive economic growth after exiting zero-COVID.
Maybe he assumed he could get away with it like he had in the past, or maybe he was badly advised about the risk of retaliation. Either way, Xi didn’t want this outcome. On top of his track record of consequential missteps, this should make everyone worry about what other serious blunders Xi could make in the future.
US-China relations are a minefield. Biden and Xi have both expressed a desire to build a “floor” under the relationship, but that will prove easier said than done amid structurally intensifying strategic competition and a complete absence of trust.
Balloon-gate is only the latest in a series of mutual escalations in recent weeks, including US sanctions on a Chinese company doing business with Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group, a likely US ban of all trade with Chinese tech giant Huawei, and new proposed Chinese export controls on key high-tech industries.
And more clashes are sure to come soon as China grows closer to Russia (possibly in defiance of US sanctions), House Speaker Kevin McCarthy travels to Taiwan, and Washington tightens the screws on China’s tech sector. The fact that a literal balloon caused the US to indefinitely postpone a much-needed meeting with Xi is a sign of how little it could take for the relationship to … blow up.
US domestic politics complicate efforts to ease tensions. It’s very hard to imagine Biden was planning to shoot the balloon down if Secretary of State Antony Blinken was heading to China to meet with Xi. And Biden was very much still planning on sending Blinken to Beijing after he found out about the balloon. Why? Because it posed no real threat to anyone, and the trip was still in America’s interest. The minute photos of the balloon went public courtesy of the Billings Gazette, though, Biden had no choice but to back off.
That’s not flip-flopping — that’s politics. America’s political polarization and bipartisan support for aggressive China policy mean any US president would’ve been under intense pressure to act tough, even if doing so undermined US strategic interests and made conflict more likely. We saw this last year with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leaked trip to Taiwan, and we’ll see it again in the spring when Speaker McCarthy travels to Taipei. This perverse political reality limits the room to stabilize ties and incentivizes actions that risk confrontation.
All of this bodes poorly for Biden and Xi’s attempted détente. Ironically, Blinken’s trip to Beijing was meant to put guardrails in place to prevent these sorts of crises from spiraling out of control. But as this episode makes clear, Washington and Beijing will struggle mightily to prevent a drift toward escalation.
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The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach, South Carolina.
What We're Watching: US-China balloon fallout, Iranian "amnesty"
As US shoots down Chinese spy balloon, China cries foul
If we'd told you a week ago that the recent US-China thaw would be upended by X, you'd have probably guessed X had something to do with Taiwan, US semiconductor export controls, or perhaps China's covert profiteering from Russia's war in Ukraine. Nope. It was all over ... a balloon.
On Sunday, Beijing issued a strongly worded statement a day after US fighter jets shot down a Chinese spy balloon that entered American airspace last week. President Joe Biden waited until the balloon was over water just off the South Carolina coast to authorize the operation – officially to avoid putting US civilians and infrastructure at risk and perhaps to respond to pressure from Republicans who'd chided him for not shooting it down earlier.
The discovery of the snoop balloon made US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancel his weekend trip to Beijing, which would have been the first by a top US diplomat in five years. And Biden’s decision to shoot it down throws a wrench into a US-China rapprochement that had been in the works since Biden and Xi Jinping had a nicer-than-expected chat at the G-20 summit in Bali last November. While certainly weird, this doesn't seem like a crisis that can't be overcome.
Why? For one thing, it's not in China's interest to escalate further over such a bizarre incident, which was, if we believe Beijing’s official explanation, accidental as the balloon veered off course due to strong winds. For another, if Xi was testing the US president to see how he’d respond, now he knows.
Still, the aerial drama does raise the stakes for future misunderstandings, miscalculations, and overreactions coming from both sides. As China expert Michael Hirson explains in this Twitter thread, it’s “simultaneously amusing and worrying because that’s the stage of the US-China relationship we’ve entered: absurd and also dangerous. Dr. Strangelove isn't here yet, but he's knocking."