“The Chinese military has written about a range of potential applications for balloons and drones in near space,” he added. “You can intercept communications that you can’t capture from space. You can loiter for longer periods of time over targets, study or interfere with an adversary’s radar, target enemy satellites and help guide strategic weapons.” Chinese military researchers have warned in recent years of the need to keep the United States from establishing superiority in near space. In 2018, Liberation Army Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese military, published an article that said, “Near space has become a new…