We don't even know if it was the PRC's object. The PRC has taken responsibility for the first balloon, but denies involvement with this one. This isn't a big-budget project. A startup company or a university could launch some balloon-borne instrument package.
It's going to be embarrassing if it turns out to be somebody's solar telescope or high altitude pollution instrument package, both of which have been launched on balloons of that size.
Yeah they are not worried about our 'detection limits' and definitely not 'wasting our resources'.
They might possibly be hoping to pick up some F22 signatures or something like that but even then very unlikely. They have ships that can do that.
And given the 'free publicity' the China Hawks are going to get (not quite 'Sputnik Moment' but a bit like that) I suggest it can't bode well for them, unless are playing real 3D chess and some internal guy is trying to get America to 'wake up' so as to prevent a war!
It's definitely a wierd one.
I suspect they won’t learn much other than how the US responds to balloons. It’s not like the US is revealing anything novel or secret. They’ve used already unclassified and publicly available aircraft and ordinance.
One plausible (though entirely speculative) explanation could be they wanted the US to react this way. Now we will waste our military resources responding to these balloons and they in turn will learn about our military readiness. They could be intentionally probing and start sending smaller and smaller balloons to figure out where our detection limit is. They could want to understand how information flows and decisions are made by our government and have already tapped into other intelligence signals that this pen test is helping them monitor.
Again all speculation. But my fundamental point is you don't know their intention to know if they erred.