The fact that this became a story at all is purely geopolitical in my opinion. Perhaps to do Blinkens up coming Beijing visit (which has since been canned). As far as I can tell the chinese dislike bad press like this. Having the balloon become a fiasco becomes a reason to cancel the trip. Can't exactly tell the why's but this is my guess.
100%. If the balloon was a threat, why wasn't it shot down over Alaska? Or earlier on it's trip over the continental US. There was no threat... Here's an opportunity to drum up a lot of FUD and use it as a geopolitical lever.
Also painting China bad is a great method of painting yourselves in better light domestically. Both sides of politics in the US have vested interest in this narrative.
