Chinese navy returns seized drone to U.S.

BEIJING — The Chinese navy on Tuesday handed back a U.S. underwater drone it had seized, returning the device to the United States after days of contention that drew the ire of President-elect Donald Trump.

A Chinese vessel returned the submersible drone to a U.S. Navy ship in international waters off the Philippines, near where it was taken on Thursday, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, Peter Cook, said on the Pentagon’s website.

Since the Pentagon disclosed the episode on Friday and demanded the return of the ocean-monitoring device, American and Chinese officials have engaged in verbal sniping over the legality of the seizure, which took place roughly 500 miles from the coast of mainland China. In the latest announcement, Cook pressed home the official U.S. position.

“The incident was inconsistent with both international law and standards of professionalism for conduct between navies at sea,” Cook said. He did not mention what condition the drone was in when it was returned.

Trump, who has recently irked Beijing with a string of blunt comments on controversial issues including Taiwan, trade and North Korea’s nuclear weapons, also took up the dispute over the drone, which is also called an unmanned underwater vehicle.

But unlike the Pentagon, he suggested that China could keep it. On Saturday, Trump said on Twitter that the seizure was an “unprecedented act,” and he later added: “We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back.”

China’s opaque policymaking, especially on military issues, has left outsiders guessing about who authorized the seizure, whether the act was meant to send a message, and, if so, whether that message was aimed at Trump. But the way in which the Chinese ship fished out the drone with a U.S. Navy ship nearby suggested a calibrated action, several analysts said.

Trump has drawn particular ire from Beijing for suggesting he could depart from the One China principle, which blocks Washington from diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The Chinese government insists that it has a sovereign right to Taiwan, which has its own democratically elected government.

“I see the snatched drone as a calculated act of coercive diplomacy approved at the top,” Patrick M. Cronin, the senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, said in an email.

“I believe Beijing accelerated plans to create an early test for the new administration because Trump publicly called into question the One China policy and because China judged it safer to provoke Obama than an unpredictable Trump,” Cronin said.

The statement by Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, made clear that the episode would not shake U.S. determination to maintain a military presence in the South China Sea, where busy shipping lanes intersect with volatile rivalries over territorial claims.

He said the United States would “continue to fly, sail and operate in the South China Sea wherever international law allows.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES