Surely the appropriate response is to release some "weather" balloons from Taiwan.

I'm pretty sure they'd head towards the US too, but I'm not exactly sure of the prevailing winds.

You can check wind conditions with https://www.windy.com to find out …

I checked, looks like they'd probably fly into China right now (maybe Hong Kong) if released from Taiwan

It sounds similar in goals to the Regan-era PSYOP described by Peter Schweizer

> "It really got to them," recalls Dr. William Schneider, [former] undersecretary of state for military assistance and technology, who saw classified "after-action reports" that indicated U.S. flight activity. "They didn't know what it all meant. A squadron would fly straight at Soviet airspace, and other radars would light up and units would go on alert. Then at the last minute the squadron would peel off and return home."[1]

Peter Schweizer, Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union

If I were Russia (which is not far from Alaska) I would launch these at random intervals with junk COTS electronics just to confuse matters. The cost of each launch can probably be denominated in thousands.

Damn that’s cheaper than 10 mobiks

Part of the provocation is that China has been seen testing balloons as a weapons delivery platform for high-speed gliding munitions

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23758/video-appears-to...

nah, SIGINT. great way to probe the air-defense capabilities of your opponent

> it continually forces the adversary to ask "where do we draw a line, and what consequences do we give for crossing it?"

Sounds a lot like parenting a toddler.