Spy balloon, Panda diplomacy: US-China ties in 2023 entered a phase of 21st century cold war

On December 8, Taiwan Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng, while interacting with reporters, shared information about China's suspected weather balloon crossing the sensitive median line of the Strait at a time when elections were just a month away and tensions were only escalating.

The media reports speculated that the suspected weather balloon was another one of those spy balloons used by China for surveillance. In a very short time frame, the comment by the minister took the global political stage back to the dramatic spat between the United States and China when a high-altitude Chinese balloon was seen flowing in American airspace from January 28 to February 4, only to be finally shot down by the US Air Force over its territorial waters off the coast of South Carolina.

Thaw in relations, diplomacy at bay

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The spotting of the Chinese balloon in American airspace led to a political uproar between the two countries and US diplomat Antony Blinken's trip to Beijing from February 5-6 was suddenly called off.

A military operation was carried out which involved multiple fighters and refuelling aircraft and one F-22 fighter jet in shooting down the balloon. The government of the US never revealed which sites were surveyed by the Chinese balloon, but it was said to have flown over Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, which has been in charge of nuclear forces.

Through the trial and explosion of the balloon, China kept reiterating that it was a civilian craft which was used for meteorological and other purposes, and had flown into US airspace "completely accidentally".

Blinken, after cancelling his China visit, met with the Chinese embassy's senior officials along with Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman to convey "a strong set of messages". A team was already directed by Biden to protect sensitive information of sites from Chinese surveillance till the mission was over.

A balloon failure or just a hullabaloo?

It was only months later in June that the Pentagon revealed after analysing the debris of the balloon that it did not collect any information.

Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder had said that the US was "aware that [the balloon] had intelligence collection capabilities. But it has been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or overflying the United States".

US intelligence further hinted that China has most likely suspended its surveillance balloon programme after the major diplomatic escalation. However, the incident left many questions unanswered like why did China choose balloons over satellite and to what avail?

"This wasn't the first time an Asian balloon had overflown from China. This incident was one of the most absurd and obselete ones and it projected a clumsy way of gathering intel. This is because there is nothing a balloon can do that a satellite can't do much better, more accurately and with greater precision. This appeared far from challenging US hegemony and it looked something like a joke," said Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, Senior Research Fellow at the New Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.

Hiccups in US-China panda diplomacy

The early 1970s, which marked the 'ping-pong' diplomacy between the United States and China, saw the exchange of table tennis players between the countries as an effort to establish ties between the two countries.

It was the same diplomacy which paved the way for US President Richard Nixon's historic ice-breaking visit to Beijing in 1972, where for the first time a pair of pandas were gifted by Beijing to the Smithsonian National Zoo – marking the beginning of panda diplomacy.

Since then, pandas have become some kind of unofficial barometer of China and US relations. However, 2023 saw the collapse of the panda diplomacy between the two countries as the contract for lending these fur animals expired and was not renewed.

In November, the last three remaining pandas at the Smithsonian National Zoo were sent back to China after remaining in the US for more than 50 years. The departure of pandas from the United States appeared as a sign of the significant shift in their complicated relationship where tension seemed to prevail over the cuteness of the adorable bears.

A step ahead or a step behind – where is China headed?

Amid such strained ties, Xi Jinping made a political visit to the United States and held the most-awaited talks with Biden in San Francisco, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference.

The meeting saw some significant decisions being taken by the two countries like the resumption of military-to-military communication and co-operation on drug crackdown while heated issues like Taiwan remained part of the discussion.

However, interestingly, after the meeting with Biden Xi hinted on the return of pandas – calling them “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples".

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“I…learned that the San Diego Zoo and the Californians very much look forward to welcoming pandas back. We are ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation, and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples," said Xi.

Speaking about the chances of pandas being recalled, Suyash Desai, a Taiwan-based research scholar on China's military and foreign policy, said, "Panda Diplomacy is used by China to thaw rising tensions between the two countries. It is an old diplomatic practice since the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Given the current geopolitical tensions between the two countries, it was likely that Pandas would be recalled and it is largely a symbolic measure by China. Also in the current scenario, I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the Pandas would be recalled next year when the contract expires."

It will be interesting to see if Pandas will play a significant role in strengthening ties between the two countries in 2024 or whether it will hit a new low.