Posted on 12/16/2016 9:04:21 AM PST by mandaladon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Chinese Navy warship has seized an underwater drone deployed by an American oceanographic vessel in international waters in the South China Sea, triggering a formal diplomatic protest
from the United States and a demand for its return, a U.S. defense official told Reuters on Friday.
The incident, the first of its kind in recent memory, took place on Dec. 15 northwest of Subic Bay off the Philippines just as the USNS Bowditch, an oceanographic survey ship, was about to retrieve the unmanned, underwater vehicle (UUV), the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"The UUV was lawfully conducting a military survey in the waters of the South China Sea," the official said.
"It's a sovereign immune vessel, clearly marked in English not to be removed from the water - that it was U.S. property."
The Chinese seizure will add to concerns about China's growing military presence and aggressive posture in the disputed South China Sea, including its militarization of maritime outposts.
A U.S. think tank reported this week that new satellite imagery indicated that China has installed weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, on all seven artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea.
The seized underwater drone was part of an unclassified program to collect oceanographic data, including salinity, temperature and clarity of the water, the official added.
Such data can help inform U.S. military sonar data, since sound is affected by such factors.
The United States issued the formal demarche, as such protests are known, through diplomatic channels and included a demand that China immediately return the underwater drone.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
They will only test him ONCE...that will be the end of it...
You look at who Trump has put where...that should explain what he plans on doing...
Sinking might be a bit much. Maybe it could become in desperate need of repairs, towed to port and then scrapped for economic reasons. Perhaps there will be some major engine damage in that ship’s future?
If Obama waits until Trump gets into office. This will only give Trump an excuse to change the trade agreements.
Spying on the Chinks’ own backyard...
IIUC, it's not a piece of military hardware.
They were just looking for Amelia Earhart’s plane.
That's an easy one. He will blame it on Trump and his acceptance of a congratulatory call from the Taiwanese Leader.
He’ll apologize, then beg for them to return it. He’s got to have a safe place to escape to.
Zero probably told them to do it.
In that he will probably be right but we ought not to believe that we are dealing with the real problem in this tit-for-tat but only the symptoms of an increasingly aggressive and lawless China. We make a phone call, they steal. The left will use this as evidence that Trump is ignorant and clumsy in matters of diplomacy and international relations and therefore a danger in the Oval Office.
Prediction. The MSM will provide him with a huge softball question at his press conference today making the linkage for him. Obama will respond that Presidents must be careful in their actions and use of words to avoid any misunderstandings, especially with our relationship with the PRC. He will say that this does not excuse China's actions, but we must avoid precipitating such actions.
It is BS to claim that the PRC action is linked to the telephone conversation. It is a linkage that Obama and the MSM want to make to avoid the other actions that the PRC has already taken without any push back by us.
Less than a week before President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Taiwan’s president over the phone, China flew a pair of long-range nuclear-capable bombers around Taiwan for the first time.
On Nov. 26, two Chinese Xian H-6 bombers, along with two escort planes, a Tupolev Tu-154 and Shaanxi Y-8, flew around the island of Taiwan from mainland China, taking off and landing from two separate Chinese military bases.
The escort jets were used to collect radar information and conduct other surveillance on American allies such as Japan. The Chinese bombers stayed in international airspace, according to officials.
Maybe he get the poodles at Media Watch to put out a fake news rumor that the Russians hacked the drone’s navigation system?
They call that ‘Piracy’.
The parallel with Russian overflights cannot be escaped and we are increasingly being confronted with the potential for a close Russian/Chinese axis, possibly with connection to Iran, parts of Iraq and parts of Syria which would be strategically threatening indeed and likely to terrify our allies.
If that axis forms, it will be imperative that we hold our allies in line and that will be no easy undertaking considering the pusillanimous nature of our friends in NATO. In Asian waters, Fox's just reported that the president of the Philippines has ordered the American military out.
Can you imagine if Trump had not been elected?
The Obama Admin is also good at hashtag campaigns and strongly worded letters to the UN.
Next time leave some dummies made up precisely for that. Have fun losing your key engineers who were dismantling it.
Let’s see what Zero does now...
#pleasegiveusbackourunderwaterdrone
Actually, as I type this, he’s doing other things he’s good at: lying, stroking his ego and going on vacay.
Quick. Look up "NUMA" in the DC phonebook...
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