From the article:
"The other troubling idea was that they were blowing up a satellite and dumping even more high-velocity junk into orbit. They didn’t. This bird was low enough that it will allegedly fall into the atmosphere and burn up in a few weeks."
Let's suppose that this third-world country properly calculated the orbital decay and trajectory of the scattering debris field from the explosion and this "high-velocity junk" doesn't remain in orbit. It will have to fall back to earth at some point. While it is randomly descending in a million pieces (not like a large, intact space station that will retain more of a pattern as it reenters the atmosphere and can be tracked) - who knows how much will remain intact, what commercial airliners it may impact on the way down, and where the debris will land?
There are strategic reasons for a test like this - both scientific and political. But it reminds me a little bit of the revelry that took place on New Year's Eve in Dallas from a neighborhood right next to where I lived that had a particular concentration of people from elsewhere who celebrated by randomly firing guns into the air - and where she stopped - nobody cared.
Until they did.
Performing such an act is blatant disregard for the entire population of earth IMHO. Yes - China needs someone to jerk a knot in their tail. There are better ways. Thankfully there's a new sheriff on the world's stage and I'm confident that President Trump will do what's necessary when the situation requires it.
“Performing such an act is blatant disregard for the entire population of earth IMHO. Yes - China needs …”
China?