China doesn't want war with US at this stage - political scientist Tsang

He said this in an interview with Spotlight Ukraine on Espreso TV. 

The political scientist believes that the Chinese balloon was probably spying in US space.

“Well, if the Chinese government did send out a balloon or allowed weather balloons to drift off the coast, the Chinese government could afford to tell the Americans or others that one of their balloons was lost and they could expect it to drift in their airspace without creating a diplomatic incident. Or they could have found a way to lower the balloons so that the Americans could see that it was just a meteorological one. They did neither. So I think the American suspicions are much more likely than the Chinese government's explanation,” he said. 

At the same time, Steve Tsang is convinced that Beijing isn't ready for a confrontation with Washington now.

“The Chinese government would certainly not want their balloons to provoke a war with the United States. China does not want a war with the United States at this stage over Taiwan or any other issue. The simple reason is that China does not feel that it is capable of winning such a competition with the United States at this point,” the director of the SOAS China Institute concluded.