Time to prick 'spy balloon' trick

Accusation not credible

Although some Pentagon officials claim that they have confirmed that the spy balloon belongs to China, doubts persist.

As we all know, satellite reconnaissance technology has made great progress in recent years. It's hard to imagine any big country in the world will be clumsy enough to rush spy balloons into the airspace of other countries when it owns reconnaissance satellites.

What's more, it's too early to judge whether the balloon is for military, or a meteorological observation purpose or if it was a scientific research balloon that lost its way.

The US government hyped up the Chinese spy balloon threat without fully gathering relevant information. This will only aggravate the US citizen's aversion for and distrust of China. This is not only irresponsible but also not conducive to the improvement and development of Sino-US relations.

He Weibao is an assistant researcher at the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.