Like you say, absurd. China has no reason to stop its resistance to imperial conquest without any fight.
guojing
I think the most likely scenario is that China intentionally flew a regular weather balloon with bunch of western tech in it knowing precisely how US would react.
That's impossible because weather balloons aren't steerable. There was just an unusual wind. If it was really a spy balloon, the US also wouldn't have quietly allowed it to fly over Alaska and Canada.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/nyt-plants-false-claims-over-chinas-balloon-communication.html
It's essentially an automated bullshit generator. A lot of people with bullshit jobs will be out of work. More importantly, people will necessarily get better at distinguishing bullshit from actual facts, and that will make it much more difficult for corporate media to tell their lies. At least that's my naive hope.
Chest puffing or defending their national territory? Why is the US military even active thousands of kilometers from their own territory? On the other hand the United States goes completely hysterical over some weather balloons, imagine that Russia also sent drones like this.