China Returns Seized US Navy underwater Drone

In a statement from the Pentagon, the USA acknowledged receipt of the drone but criticized China for the seizure.

China first took the drone from off the coast of the Philippines last Thursday.

The U.S. -China Economic and Security Review Commission stated in a report in May that certain developments in China pose an increasing security risk to Guam that eclipses failure-prone North Korean missile launches.

Beijing accused the Pentagon on Tuesday of “unreasonable” criticism after the return of an underwater drone. Moreover, the incident fell into what strategists call a gray zone, too mild to provoke a military response that risks destabilizing the region. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Monday reiterated the defense ministry’s objections to what she called US “reconnaissance and surveys in Chinese waters”. “I don’t know if you’d want that drone back”.

Whether they found anything interesting remains to be seen.

Misspelling “unprecedented”, he tweeted: “China steals United States Navy research drone in worldwide waters – rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act”. “They probably wouldn’t be able to read the data on it, and they might not get a great deal of intelligence out of it”. USA military expansion in the Asia-Pacific region have prompted Beijing to develop missile capabilities to target US military facilities, on Guam in particular, the commission stated in a May report. China has, since the end of World War II, claimed almost the entire region as its own, while the United States and other nations insist that the area constitutes global water belonging to no country and open to navigation by all.

The Chinese ship took the glider – one of two that was scheduled to be recovered by the U.S. Navy oceanographic survey ship USNS Bowditch (T-AGS-62) – near the same spot in worldwide waters.

The Chinese ship reportedly ignored acknowleded radio requests from the Bowditch to return the craft, sparking a diplomatic row. Later it added that the vessel would be returned in an “appropriate manner“, calling the U.S. response “unhelpful“.

The Pentagon said a Chinese ship seized the USA drone Thursday afternoon in an area about 92 kilometers (57 miles) northwest of Subic Bay near the Philippines.

Former senior consultant at the National Security Council and former Magdalo party-list representative Francisco Ashley Acedillo noted that many defense analyst and experts have pointed to the possibility of China trying to establish this triad in the Paracels, Fiery Cross, and Scarborough.

The U.S. government addressed the incident with Chinese officials through diplomatic and military channels, DoD noted. Ocean Gliders such as this are used regularly by the U.S. Navy and other militaries throughout the world. The SAF previously said that they were not provided formal reasons about why the vehicles have been detained.

“The good thing about the device is that it was unmanned”, Koh said.