NBC NEWS
A large balloon may be a novel cause of strife between two major powers, but the escalating dispute has put many countries in a familiar position: stuck in the middle of the United States and China, and not happy about it.
Like so many clashes between Washington and Beijing, the downing of a Chinese surveillance balloon by the U.S. military has rippled across the world, drawing in U.S. allies: jets scrambled in Europe, new displays of public unity from South Korea and Japanand debates over security in Britain.
Diplomatic competition between China and the U.S. has been intensifying from Africa to the Pacific with deals on trade and military bases, while both seek to persuade existing allies to reevaluate their ties with the other side. For many countries, however, the balloon saga is just the latest tricky issue to navigate as they try to balance relations with the world’s two largest economies.
That may explain why Southeast Asia, at the forefront of the tensions, has been relatively silent on the balloon incident, said Collin Koh, a research fellow at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
“Even if you consider that some countries might have encountered similar sightings, they are not inclined to talk about it,” he told NBC News, “because they do not want to be drawn into what they see as a largely Sino-U.S. rivalry…
