Now as China Daily states:
The US drone that China seized in the South China Sea has been successfully returned, China's Defense Ministry said. "After friendly negotiation, the drone was transferred to the US at a location in the South China Sea on Tuesday noon," the ministry said in a press release. The drone was discovered and retrieved by Chinese Navy last Thursday to "prevent danger to the safe navigation of passing ships and personnel", the ministry said. It was operating about 93 kilometers northwest of Subic Bay off the Philippines.
Just a friendly removal of a sea lane obstacle or Act of War?
Step back a bit, the location is just a small distance off the coast of the Philippines in International waters, a quite a distance from China.
So what are you to believe. The Chinese or your lying eyes?
Science makes an interesting statement:
For ocean scientists who have worked with the U.S. military, today’s news that Chinese forces seized an oceanographic glider launched by an unarmed U.S. Navy research ship working in the South China Sea has a familiar ring. It’s not the first time that Chinese ships have confronted the USNS Bowditch or one of its five sister oceanographic ships, a little-known U.S. Navy fleet operated mostly by civilians that conducts mapping and ocean data collection cruises around the world. In 2001 and 2002, for instance, Chinese Navy frigates dogged the Bowditch as it worked in the Yellow Sea, leading to an exchange of diplomatic complaints. In general, the Chinese object to the U.S. Navy conducting research activities within China’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which stretches some 320 kilometers off its coastline. But U.S. officials have long held that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea specifically allows military ships to conduct research cruises within a nation’s EEZ.
One should also remeber for whom ths shipe is named, the great New England navigation expert.
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