We are in a crisis, unplanned by China or the United States, thanks to Chase Doak – with un-controverted proof – that the Chinese are in America’s sovereign air space without a tourist visa.
If President Xi Jinping was ill-advised about the Spy Balloon program, as President Vladimir Putin was by his generals last year about his winning the War in days, then this Spy Balloon debacle is a catastrophe – which has upset and energized Americans and Congress to focus on China. This, then requires him: 1. to do a new October 22, 2022 “President Hu Jintao” to the People’s Liberation Army establishment and reform it to his Politburo’s control; and 2. send the distinguished State Councilor Wang Yi to meet our Secretary Antony Blinken, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Leader Mitch McConnell to restore bilateral functionality and communication back to “regular order.”
Austin-Wei Agree in Siem Reap to Always Talk
Too far back to remember, but on November 22, 2022 in Siem Reap, Cambodia, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met with China’s Minister of National Defense General Wei Fenghe, and agreed during their meeting after Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s high decibel visit to Taiwan to: maintain communication and contact, strengthen crisis management and control, and strive to maintain regional security and stability. Well, that was then.
Chase Doak as modern day Paul Revere: The Chinese Are Coming
Then, on February 1, 2023, everything changed. Chase Doak, a resident in Billings, Montana, spotted the balloon up in the sky Wednesday afternoon, and recorded it on his cell phone: the object appears to be stationary for at least 35 minutes. The Balloon was spotted lingering near U.S. Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, where the U.S. stores a portion of its land-based nuclear weapons in more than 150 missile silos. This spontaneously led Americans and Congress to go on “high alert,” portrayed China as a potential Aggressor, and led Secretary Blinken to cancel his scheduled trip.
Crescendo of Shoot-downs: Spy Balloon, and “objects”
The first Shoot-down leads to three more, in rapid fire: on Saturday, February 4th, the Chinese Spy Balloon – admitted by China as theirs, albeit, claimed to be a weather balloon that was off course due to force majure, the Westerlies – was shot down over the Atlantic ocean off the coast of South Carolina; on Friday, February 10th over northern Alaska; on Saturday, February 11th over Yukon, Canada; and on Super Bowl Sunday, February 12th, over Lake Huron, Michigan.
“Caught Red Handed,” Defense Minister Wei Rebuffs Secretary Austin’s Call
On February 7th, the Defense Department made the request for a secure phone call between Secretary Austin and Chinese Minister General Wei Fenghe “immediately” after an F-22 shot down the balloon, and General Wei refused to have a phone call.
Where does this leave us and the world, already suffering from a war in Ukraine that should never have gotten started. The miscalculation imposed upon President Putin by his advisors and generals seems to be making an eerie return a year later, but in China for President Xi. It is nearly impossible for President Xi to have authorized this silly, sophomoric, Spy Balloon intrusion into American consciousness and have China earn the justified ire and rebuke from everyday hardworking Americans. A bad memory that will last, a lighter version of state-sponsored Pearl Harbor.
President Xi is the real life “Count of Monte Cristo”
On October 22, 2022, I saw President Xi Jinping remove former President Hu Jintao, confirm to him that it was his desire to do so, and about twenty minutes later I realized that I had just witnessed a real life Count of Monte Cristo un-do the dishonor done to his father and family almost fifty years ago. That kind of patience, a half-century’s worth, and ability to appear to be something other than who one is, to the very people who are on guard for a son seeking retribution and revenge, is unique and special in real life.
President Putin has been waging this War, on an installment plan, since 2008
Across the “No Limits Partnership” divide, in Moscow sits President Putin, who I am sure feels sorry for starting this unjust war against Ukraine a year ago, based upon the false advice and assessments he received, as his proxy war against us and NATO after his draft-treaties were rebuffed to address what he sees as a “reverse Cuban Missile Crisis.”
See, “Need Win-Win, Not Lose-Lose,” published two days before the war started. https://www.america-times.com/need-win-win-not-lose-lose/
He invaded Georgia in 2008 to warn the EU and NATO. He waited for President Barack Obama’s hot-mike “Flexibility,” expressed in Seoul, to kick in, and then invaded Ukraine and took Crimea in 2014.
Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande trade “unsuccessful” for “dishonorable”
The recent revisionist history by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s former President Francois Hollande – that they lied to President Putin in creating the Minsk Agreements and the Normandy Format – while politically beneficial to them, in their own countries (as dear Speaker Tip O’Neill said often, and to me in 1984 as a member of the Speaker’s Club, “all politics is local”) – I reject wholeheartedly. No leader can stay in office and do the best for their nation, if their word has no meaning and they, no honor. That Merkel and Hollande would belatedly fabricate now a convenient self-serving deception-of-Putin, is to trade being “unsuccessful” for “dishonorable.” While they have so traded, President Putin need not buy what they are selling locally, as he is neither a resident of Germany or France. I’ve asserted since 2015, post-Crimea, that the only answer is to have Russia join NATO. Then, in December 2021, I discovered that former Secretary of States James A. Baker III wrote an op-ed in the LA Times on December 5, 1993 stating that NATO would be in the dustbin of history if Russia was not a member. While I welcome his support for Russia’s joining NATO, he was wrong about NATO becoming useless, as it is more in need now than ever.
President Xi’s Military Advisors are worse than President Putin’s
The burning question in Beijing for President Xi is: can he avoid the trap of failure set by his own people – as President Putin is experiencing in Ukraine – who floated the hate-inviting Spy Balloon and sent it across America for over a week? The answer for a man of such conviction to be a real life Count of Monte Cristo, now firmly as head of his nation-state, is to also become firmly the head of his own government. This is a self-purification moment for China: get rid of all “Wolf Warriors,” as they invite nuclear annihilation at best. Even the great General Sun Tzu would be embarrassed by this visible-to-Chase Doak Spy Balloon, causing a great loss for little benefit.
Sacred Honor vs History’s Mirror in Bali
Ultimately, the world needs to know: will President Xi be a man that values Honor above all else, as I believe, and as our Founders did by collateralizing their “sacred honor” in the immortal Declaration of Independence, and be a gracious friend to all, or be angry about a few humiliating pages of history held-in-the-mirror, a disturbing term used in Bali during the Presidents Xi-Joseph R. Biden meeting, and be a threat to all, friend and foe alike. Alexandre Dumas wrote the Count of Monte Cristo as an inspiration for Justice, not revenge; and Justice without compassion, will only cause an endless cycle of ruin. That is why Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” paradigm is humanity’s best answer to every problem, to avoid, as Martin Luther King predicted: becoming blind and toothless.
President Xi must fire Balloon General
If President Xi wishes to avoid President Putin’s fate, getting stuck in his own Bear-Trap in Ukraine, then I recommend that he must publicly fire the “Balloon General,” and must reorganize People’s Liberation Army, from top to bottom, to better serve China’s best interests: which surely does not include been distrusted by more and more people on earth, as that will cause China’s lasting economic depression; aka economic death.
Personal Request: Let China change course and be in-fact a grateful friend of America
On a personal note, now that “Xi Jinping Thought” has more value than the late former Chairman Moa Zedong’s Thought, which brought the cursed “Cultural Revolution” and betrayal of America – instead of gratitude and love for America after President Richard Nixon’s visit to the Great Hall and switching Taiwan (ROC) with China (PRC) as a P5 Member in the UNSC – President Xi ought to empower his trusted, patriotic and ambition-less State Councillor Wang Yi to change course and lay a public path, collateralized by sacred honor, to finally become in-fact and by-deed America’s trusted ally for centuries to come. And, since the No Limits Partnership has “No Forbidden Zones,” help pull President Putin out of his un-Godly War, and restructure the security architecture humanity needs to be finally free of war – as Prime Minister Narendra Modi correctly asserted in Samarkand during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit on September 15, 2022: this is not an era for war!
Chinese-Americans are an indivisible and welcomed part of America today, with Chinese culture and food a part of Americana. America is a nation of immigrants, and we well recall the contributions by the hardworking Chinese laborers who helped connect America by rail, from sea to shining sea. Imagine their descendants’ pain at China actively working against us from South China Sea to UNSC. I urge President Xi that its high time to replace “pain” with mutual “honor” and “pride,” in its long-held traditional sense.
Ravi Batra, Esq.
Ravi Batra, starting September 11, 2021, is a publisher ofThe America Times Company Ltd., and since January 2022, is the Editor-in-Chief. He is a member of the National Press Club, in Washington D.C., and a member of its "Freedom of the Press" and "International Correspondents" Teams/Committees.
A member of the bar since 1981, he is the head of a boutique law firm in Manhattan, The Law Firm of Ravi Batra, P.C., that handles complex constitutional, sovereignty, torture, civil and criminal cases, representing governments, corporates and individuals, with landmark legal victories, including, libel in fiction, in “Batra v. Dick Wolf.” He is Chairman & CEO, Greenstar Global Energy Corp., King Danylo of Galicia International Ltd., Mars & Pax Advisors, Ltd., Chairman of National Advisory Council on South Asian Affairs, and since September 2021, Advisor for Legal and Humanitarian Affairs to the Permanent Mission of Georgia to the United Nations. He is invited by various governments to address High Level Ministerial events, including, on Counter-Terrorism, including, Astana (Nur-Sultan), Dushanbe, Minsk and Delhi. He has testified in Congress as an invitee of the Chair, U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, and interacted with U.S. Department of State from 1984 -1990, and then again, from 2006, during the tenures of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo and Antony Blinken.
He has served as Commissioner of New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), Trustee on New York State IOLA Board, New York State Judicial Screening Committee for the Second Judicial Department, City Bar’s Judicial Committee, Vice-Chair of Kings County Democratic County Committee’s Independent Judicial Screening Committee for the then-2nd Judicial Department of Brooklyn and Staten Island, Chair of NYSTLA’ Judicial Independence Committee, with many more bar leadership roles, including, NYSBA’s House of Delegates for four years. He has served as Advisor for Legal & Human Rights Affairs to the Permanent Mission of Ukraine post-annexation of Crimea till 2021, and Legal Advisor to numerous nations’ permanent missions to the U. N. since 2009, including, India, Pakistan, Honduras and Malta. He has served: as Global Special Counsel to The Antonov Company in Ukraine, a state-owned company, and was registered with the Justice Dept pursuant to FARA; and as Special Global Advisor to Rector/President of both - National Aviation University of Ukraine and National Technical University of Ukraine/KPI. He remains involved in geopolitics and public policy since the mid-1980's, starting with being on House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s Speaker’s Club and appointed member of NACSAA during President Ronald Reagan’s tenure. In 1988, he was part of U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese’s Delegation to Japan to resolve bilateral trade imbalance. He regularly interacts with the multilateral diplomatic community, and during the High Level UNGA Debate, with heads of State/Government. He is sought for his views as a speaker and writer.