The Global Times, the sister publication of the People's Daily, has been publishing a litany of outrage over the US's (admittedly overexcited) reaction to China's "weather balloon."
GT is known for its hypernationalistic editorials, most of them written in venomous ink. Yet their polemics often make for amused reading instead, since the strain of reaching for the utmost extremes in indignation is, quite often, easily readable as well.
A few quotes, just to give you a flavor of GT's servings of nearly speechless exasperation with the always wicked US. This latest editorial comes after the latter's downing of China's balloon.
"The Chinese side has verified the situation and communicated with the US side multiple times, saying the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace was due to force majeure [an unintended event] and the incident was totally an accident.... By turning an unintentional accident into an incident that has been hyped by the US officials and media, Washington is adding new uncertainties into the already-intense relations with China."
This passage is particularly delicious. "It's also believed that the US is very interested in our related technology so that it needs to obtain it in such improper way, [says] Lü Xiang, research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. 'In fact, such high-altitude balloon is equipped with cutting-edge technologies in terms of material, which the US side may have yet had,' Lü said."
Another face-palming giggle is GT's contention that downing its balloons could financially impoverish America's air defenses. I kid you not. Nor does GT. To wit: "Compared with an unmanned balloon that flies with the wind, the US interception method that featured an advanced stealth fighter jet and fired a missile is too costly. If more balloons, not necessarily from China, fly across the US, the US Air Force would be exhausted and may even be bankrupted in intercepting them in this way."
GT did accurately pinpoint one facet of the existentially threatening Balloon Crisis. "[It] went viral on the US social media. A number of US hawks on China-related matters have been hyping the use of balloon for spying purpose." GT singled out Sen. Tom Cotton and Gov. Greg Abbott as fanatically jingoistic paranoids of note, but only because limited print space debarred listing all 222 House Republicans, 49 Senate Republicans, and 26 Republican governors.
How does the Global Times leave matters? — at least for today? "Senior Colonel Tan Kefei [of China's ministry of national defense says] China will reserve the right to take necessary measures in dealing with similar situations. Tan's remarks mean that if a foreign airship accidentally enters the Chinese airspace, the Chinese forces could also shoot it down in a similar manner."
That, in foreign affairs, is called "proportionality" — an eye for an eye, so to speak, which in the Old Testament was actually a call for restraint: not a life for an eye. For all of GT's ravings, in the end, it's rather reserved.