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Chinese warship seizes US underwater drone in international waters Chinese warship seizes US underwater drone in international waters
(about 2 hours later)
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 and demand for its return from the United States, a US defense official told Reuters on Friday. The Chinese navy has seized an underwater drone in plain sight of the American sailors who had deployed it in international waters, in a seemingly brazen message to the incoming Trump administration.
The incident – the first of its kind in recent memory – took place on Thursday north-west of Subic Bay 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. According to a US defence official, the unmanned glider had come to the surface of the water in the South China Sea and was about to be retrieved by the USNS Bowditch, an oceanographic and surveillance ship, when a Chinese naval vessel that had been shadowing the Bowditch put a small boat in the water.
“The UUV was lawfully conducting a military survey in the waters of the South China Sea,” the official said. Chinese sailors in the small boat came alongside the drone and grabbed it despite the radioed protests from the Bowditch that it was US property in international waters. The incident happened about 100 miles north-west of the Philippines’ port of Subic Bay.
“It’s a sovereign immune vessel, clearly marked in English not to be removed from the water – that it was US property.” The US has issued a formal protest and demanded the return of the glider.
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. “The UUV [unmanned underwater vehicle] 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 US property.”
A US thinktank 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 aggressive Chinese gesture comes at a time of rising tensions between China and the US in the South China Sea, where Beijing has claimed ownership of a number of reefs and small islands – which it is in the process of militarising – while the US navy has been conducting patrols nearby to assert freedom of navigation in the sea lanes.
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. The tension has spiked since Donald Trump was elected in November. The US president-elect quickly broke a 37-year protocol by taking a call from the president of Taiwan, and openly questioned Washington’s longstanding “one China” policy that does not recognise Taiwan as a separate state. Beijing has signalled it would respond dramatically if Trump implements a break in policy once he takes office on 20 January. In recent days, China has conducted bomber patrols close to Taiwan in a flexing of its military muscle.
Such data can help inform US military sonar data, since sound is affected by such factors. The seizure of the drone is also a reflection of the struggle occurring under the surface of the South China Sea. As China develops a strategic submarine fleet, with the potential to carry nuclear missiles out into the Pacific Ocean, the US has built up a monitoring network designed to spot Chinese submarines as they leave their bases. Drones are key to the network, and there is a race under way between major naval powers to develop drones that can work together in swarms and “see” long distances through the water. Underwater gliders are drones that can stay underwater on the lookout for submarines for long periods of time.
The US issued the formal demarche, as such protests are known, through diplomatic channels and included a demand that China immediately return the underwater drone. “This looks like signalling from the Chinese in response to Trump’s Taiwan call,” said Bonnie Glaser, the director of the China Power Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “It is hard to believe this is the action of an independent commander. The Chinese now have much better control over the military, particularly the navy. It is in China’s interest to send signals before Trump is inaugurated, so that he gets the message and be more restrained once he is office.”
The Chinese have acknowledged the demarche but not responded to it, the official added. Sebastian Brixey-Williams of the British American Security Information Council said: “Nuclear states are increasing anxious about unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs, or underwater drones) autonomously tracking their nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), making them vulnerable to antisubmarine warfare. This is an issue for China in particular, whose SSBN fleet is small and noisy. Though the USNS Bowditch is an oceanographic ship and may sound harmless, the kinds of data it is collecting will make Chinese submarines easier to find over time.
The US ship had stopped to pick up two underwater drones, CNN reported. A Chinese ship that had been shadowing it put a small boat into the water and took one of the drones, according to the network. “China therefore accomplishes a number of things by seizing a US underwater drone,” Brixley-Williams said. “It allows Chinese scientists to better understand the US’s offensive technical capabilities in this area, and potentially allows them to reverse-engineer them, bringing gains in both the commercial and military spheres.”
The move comes after US president-elect Donald Trump called into question the longstanding US foreign policy of maintaining formal relations with Beijing instead of Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province. He also spoke directly with Taiwan’s president, the first such contact since 1979. Both moves have infuriated China. Glaser pointed out that the Chinese have frequently tested the US when there is a new administration. In the early months of the George W Bush administration, in 2001, the Bowditch was involved in a close encounter with a Chinese frigate which turned on its gun control radar and forced it to retreat. A week later there was a collision between a US spy plane and Chinese warplane off China’s Hainan island.
More details soon ... At about the same point in the early Obama administration, in March 2009, a number of Chinese navy ships harassed another US oceanographic vessel, the USNS Impeccable, coming as close as 50ft away, trying to snag its acoustic equipment with hooks, waving flags and demanding the Impeccable leave the area.