China returns seized U.S. naval drone despite Trump call to keep it

[DonViejo]

Source: The Washington Post

BEIJING — China on Tuesday returned a U.S. naval drone seized in the South China Sea last week, a peaceful resolution to a military standoff that threatened to inflame maritime tensions ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The Chinese Ministry of Defense said in a statement that after “friendly negotiation” the drone was transferred to the U.S. In a separate statement, the Pentagon confirmed the drone’s return, but offered a less friendly-sounding account.

The incident was “inconsistent with both international law and standards of professionalism for conduct between navies at sea,” the Pentagon statement said.

The U.S. has “called on Chinese authorities to comply with their obligations under international law and to refrain from further efforts to impede lawful U.S. activities,” the statement said.



Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-returns-seized-us-naval-drone/2016/12/20/4dde17b2-c633-11e6-acda-59924caa2450_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_chinaseadrone-2am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.43e5bd576966

[DK504]

1. How nice of the Chinese

Remeber when a situation like this would be one of the top 3 stories in news. The only place I heard about this was here.

This si the second time the Chinese have commited an Act of War on the US and we just take it. What subs, planes or ships have we illegally board and captured giving us time to see how much American technology they have stolen?

[catsudon]

4. agreed

and also i'm sure it's on right wing sites just because.

chinese, i'm sure already have a clone of it. they counterfeit everything, even magic the gathering cards.

[hughee99]

2. Didn't take them long to reverse engineer it. I wonder if that's because the technology is old, or

if it's because they built most of it in the first place.

[hack89]

5. It is commercially available technology in widespread use in the oceanography community. nt

[7962]

3. Time to start engineering a "destruct" command on these things.

Who needs it now? they took it apart and examined it. They were warned by the USN ship to leave it alone and still took it.
We should have the ability to blow it apart before someone takes control of it. Probably wouldnt be that hard to do.

[hack89]

6. Not worth it. Not like it is secret military technology

it is commercially available technology in widespread use in the world oceanography community. I suspect the Chinese have been operating their own gliders for several years.

[7962]

7. Hopefully you're right and thats all it is/was. nt