Anne Laurie

We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2016

What do you mean we, Kemo Sabe? https://t.co/GFG3AphSkY

— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 18, 2016

Assuming you’re telling Russia the same thing about the election. https://t.co/9MAeSOFdfz

— Freddie Campion (@FreddieCampion) December 18, 2016

Unlike Trump products, it’s made in the US, not China https://t.co/UcBT7dhVwD

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) December 18, 2016

Go back to the U.S. EP-3 spy plane standoff with China in 2001, imagine it happens again, and factor in this kind of rhetoric. https://t.co/xl90fTq2z6

— Chris Buckley ??? (@ChuBailiang) December 18, 2016

Bloomberg Politics, “Why China’s Seizure of a U.S. Naval Drone Is So Provocative: Q&A”:

… While confrontations between U.S. and Chinese military ships or planes occur on occasion, this is the first time China has seized an American underwater drone. The last major incident between the nations in the South China Sea happened in 2013, when a Chinese vessel nearly collided with the Cowpens, an American missile-carrying cruiser. Four years earlier, Chinese ships had harassed the U.S. Navy vessel Impeccable, leading to American protests.

In 2001, shortly after former President George W. Bush took office, a Chinese jet collided with a U.S. spy plane operating in the South China Sea, which made an emergency landing on Hainan Island. China eventually released the crew and the plane after the U.S. expressed regret for the death of a Chinese pilot and for entering Chinese airspace without verbal clearance…

4. What could explain the seizure?

Many theories are floating around. According to Zhang Baohui, director of the Center for Asian Pacific Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, one possibility is that the American drone was conducting surveillance against a Chinese nuclear submarine, and China felt the need to deny the U.S. vital military secrets.

Alternatively it may have been a response to Pacific Command chief Harry Harris’s comments last week that the U.S. would confront any Chinese attempts to control the South China Sea. Less likely, it may be due to President-elect Donald Trump’s recent questioning of U.S. policy toward Taiwan or a move by an overly assertive military commander…

5. Where are things likely to go from here?

Early indications appear that China will return the drone. The Global Times, a state-run newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party, cited an unnamed Chinese official saying it seized the unidentified device due to concerns over navigation safety. China had received the U.S. request to return the device, and the matter should be resolved smoothly, the report said.

11:54AM— Trump Comms Director credits Trump for getting China to return drone.

7:59PM— Trump says China can keep it. pic.twitter.com/wqckUce7yl

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 18, 2016

My prediction for tomorrow’s Sabbathday Gasbags Hot Take: Trump’s drone tweet was a crafty distraction from revelations about Russian hacking…

Trump thinks goading China is like calling Cruz ‘lying Ted.’ Just fun, right? Not how China sees it. He won’t learn that until too late.

— Evan Osnos (@eosnos) December 17, 2016

Open Thread: It’s All Fun & Games Until A Major Power Seizes One of Our…Post + Comments (158)