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A Chinese ship has reportedly seized an underwater survey drone in full sight of a US Navy contracted research vessel.
The drone was taken on Dec. 15, the first seizure of its kind in recent memory, about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay off the Philippines just as the USNS Bowditch was about to retrieve the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), officials said.
"The UUV was lawfully conducting a military survey in the waters of the South China Sea," one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"It's a sovereign immune vessel, clearly marked in English not to be removed from the water - that it was U.S. property," the official said.
From the CNN report:
The US got no answer from the Chinese on the radio when it said the drone was American property, the official said.
[...] US oceanographic research vessels are often followed in the water under the assumption they are spying. In this case, however, the drone was simply measuring ocean conditions, the official said.
Some background on why the South China Sea is such a tense place.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @06:54PM
It's all so propaganda driven.
I think it's somewhat self evident that China had reason to believe that the device was doing more than it's intended purpose. In other words - spying. They collect the device, verify its legitimate operation and return it. And after all the revelations of our indiscretions when it comes to surveilling friend and foe alike, are such concerns not legitimate? If the roles were reversed it'd be our news media reporting investigating a mysterious automated Chinese device that we had reason to believe was engaging in illicit surveillance outside international law - or some other post facto justification. It's ultimately all irrelevant. In the end super powers only follow international law when its to their personal or collective benefit. If China or the US wanted to provoke hostilities between one another then they'll do it. The cassus belli would be secondary to the decision. You want to invade Iraq so you claim Iraq has WMD, sadly in modern times it's rarely the other way around as it ought be. On the other hand if a nation doesn't want to provoke hostilities then this is absolutely no way whatsoever going to change that.
So ultimately, who cares?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Sunday December 18 2016, @12:10AM
The thing is, right now, in Washington, there's a giant disagreement: Trump and his team want to pick a fight with Iran and then China. Most of the rest of Washington appears to have a different plan, straight out of the brain of Henry Kissinger:
1. Finish the fight against ISIS in Iraq.
2. Finish the fight against everybody in Syria. That will, among other things, allow Israel to completely officially annex the Golon Heights and the south Lebanon "security zone".
3. Build a gas pipeline from Iraq through Syria and Turkey into Europe, creating a direct competitor to Russia's gas production that is currently propping up the Russian economy.
4. Attack and destroy Iran, replacing the government with US puppets just like in Iraq and Afghanistan. It presents a salient along the southern front, and targeting it leaves the US and its allies with near-total control of the world oil supply. They're really upset with John Kerry for screwing that up, at least temporarily.
5. Israel expels or massacres the Palestinians and officially claims both Gaza and the West Bank.
6. Cut off Russia from international oil and gas trade.
7. Attack and defeat Russia militarily.
8. With Russia out of the way, the US can now bring the entire "free world" resources to bear against China.
Now, you might notice a few flaws in this plan: Among other things, both Russia and China have nukes. But just because it's a stupid plan doesn't mean the US government won't be following it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 18 2016, @02:50AM
Hmm, that sounds Anti-Semitic. Belief in conspiracy theories is grounds for involuntary detainment and evaluation.
Please be a good citizen and prepare to be rendered to your local CNN office for a health-and-wellness check as well as reeducation. Resistance is Jew-tile.