{"id":4671,"date":"2016-12-17T09:37:30","date_gmt":"2016-12-17T09:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=4671"},"modified":"2016-12-17T09:42:52","modified_gmt":"2016-12-17T09:42:52","slug":"china-captures-us-naval-underwater-drone-in-south-china-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/china-captures-us-naval-underwater-drone-in-south-china-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"China captures US naval underwater drone in South China Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese naval ship seized an unmanned U.S. underwater vehicle in the\u00a0South China Sea<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Chinese Navy ship intercepted and grabbed a small, unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) being operated by a US Navy survey ship on Thursday in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

China’s action has triggered a formal diplomatic protest from the US and a demand for its return.<\/p>\n

Pentagon has confirmed that the Chinese naval ship seized an underwater naval drone that was being used by the U.S. Navy to test water conditions in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the incident occurred on Dec. 15 about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay, in international waters in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0USNS Bowditch, an oceanographic survey vessel<\/a><\/span> with a mostly civilian crew, was in the process of recovering two unmanned ocean gliders, which are used to collect information about water conditions that can help U.S. vessels operate.<\/p>\n

A Chinese ship, a\u00a0Dalang-III class submarine rescue vessel, approached the area, coming within about 500 yards of the Bowditch before dropping a small boat in the water. It seized one of the gliders and brought it aboard, Davis said.<\/p>\n

The incident is the latest in a string of confrontations in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina is very sensitive about unmanned underwater vehicles because they can track our nuclear ballistic missile submarines fleet,\u201d said retired Major General Xu Guangyu, a senior researcher at Beijing-based research group the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. \u201cIf one from the Bowditch can be detected and even snatched by a Chinese naval ship, it shows it\u2019s getting too close to the sensitive water areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pentagon demands China return intercepted U.S. Naval Drone<\/span><\/h3>\n

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook issued a statement Friday afternoon calling upon the Chinese government to immediately return the drone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call upon China to return our UUV immediately, and to comply with all of its obligations under international law,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement Friday.<\/p>\n

The ocean glider has been described by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a><\/span> (NOAA) as \u201can autonomous, unmanned underwater vehicle used for ocean science.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"China<\/a><\/p>\n

The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam have competing claims in the South China Sea, which is laced with the world’s most heavily travelled international trade routes.<\/p>\n

The vessel’s seizure comes amid rising tensions in the South China Sea, where China has moved to fortify its claims to the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese naval ship seized an unmanned U.S. underwater vehicle in the\u00a0South China Sea A Chinese Navy ship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[124,1,125],"tags":[137,45,43,90,7],"class_list":["post-4671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-news","category-united-states","tag-asia","tag-china","tag-drone","tag-navy","tag-u-s"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/navy-ocean-powered-drone.jpg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-1dl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4671"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4676,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671\/revisions\/4676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}