Drone seizure adds to tensions
US furious at ‘brazen violation of international law’ by Chinese navy after research vehicle captured.
The Pentagon has demanded that China immediately return a United States Navy underwater drone that was captured in the South China Sea, in a confrontation certain to exacerbate tensions in a region where Beijing has sought to assert greater control.
China ‘‘unlawfully seized’’ the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) on Friday while it was being recovered by a US Navy oceanographic survey ship during routine operations 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay in the Philippines, the US Defence Department said.
‘‘We call upon China to return our UUV immediately, and to comply with all of its obligations under international law,’’ Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.
The vehicle is an unclassified ‘‘ocean glider’’ system used around the world to gather data on salinity, water temperature and sound speed. The data can help the US military’s use of sonar.
The incident, the latest in a string of confrontations in the region, has focused renewed attention on the strained relations over China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, an issue that President-elect Donald Trump will inherit when he takes office next month.
Trump, who campaigned on a promise to extract better terms for trade with China, has already provoked condemnation from Beijing for taking a phone call from Taiwan’s president and questioning the ‘‘One China’’ policy for Taiwan and the mainland.
Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the incident ‘‘a remarkably brazen violation of international law’’.
China claims more than 80 per cent of the South China Sea, where it has constructed artificial islands and built up its military presence. This week it confirmed a report that it had installed weapons on the islands it has developed, with the Defence Ministry describing them as a ‘‘slingshot’’ to fend off threats.
Other nations in the region claim parts of the same waters, a thriving fishing zone through which trillions of dollars worth of trade passes each year.
The last major confrontation similar to the drone incident happened in 2013, when a Chinese ship cut in front of the guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens from a distance of 100 metres. The two sides have since sought to improve communication and avoid such incidents.
While the US says its naval operations in the region are an exercise of the right to free passage in international waters, China calls the moves provocative and a challenge to its territorial claims.
Cook described the drone as a ‘‘sovereign immune vessel of the United States’’.
‘‘It is ours, and it is clearly marked as ours and we would like it back. And we would like this not to happen again,’’ Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said.
Mira Rapp-Hooper, a senior fellow in the Asia-Pacific Security Programme at the Centre for a New American Security, said China would have a hard time explaining its actions.
‘‘This move, if accurately reported, is highly escalatory, and it is hard to see how Beijing will justify it legally.’’
The USNS Bowditch, a navy ship crewed by civilians, had already retrieved one of two of its drones when a Chinese Navy Dalang 3 class vessel took the second one.
Officials said the Bowditch was only 500m from the drone and, observing the Chinese action, used bridge-to-bridge communications to demand that it be returned.
The Chinese ship acknowledged the communication but did not respond to the Bowditch’s demands, Davis said. ‘‘The only thing they said after they were sailing off into the distance was, ‘We are returning to normal operations’.’’
The US issued a formal protest and a demand that China immediately return the drone. The Chinese acknowledged it but had not responded, officials said.
The seizure happened a day after China’s ambassador to the US said Beijing would never bargain with Washington over issues involving its national sovereignty or territorial integrity.