After a US spy plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter over China's Hainan Island more than 20 years ago, the two nations set up hotlines and promised better communications, writes David Sanger in a New York Times analysis. Last week's bizarre balloon story illustrates a failure on that front. "The fact that Chinese officials, realizing that the balloon had been spotted, did not call to work out a way to deal with it was revealing," writes Sanger. It also suggests that China's own intelligence network isn't communicating with its nation's civilian leadership, he adds. For the record, China continues to insist the balloon was a weather balloon, though the US says it was for surveillance. US authorities continue to search the Atlantic for debris that could settle the issue after shooting down the balloon on Saturday. More: