Comments | talk_politics: China Captured U.S. Underwater Drone

debunkgpolitics in talk_politics

China Captured U.S. Underwater Drone

Feb 06, 2017 10:58

Originally posted by debunkgpolitics at China Captured U.S. Underwater Drone
The Economist (issue 12/24/2016-1/6/2017, page 53 ( Read more... )

china, scandal

Comments 23

ddstory February 6 2017, 19:42:43 UTC

Trump wasn't even president yet at the time of the incident. I distinctly remember him tweeting (ha!) a passive-aggressive remark that China can keep the damn drone if they like.

luvdovz February 6 2017, 19:53:02 UTC

China doesn't do stuff just to embarrass Trump. He's already been doing a pretty good jon in that respect anyway.

nairiporter February 6 2017, 19:53:40 UTC

So why did they do it? Why did they seize the drone?

luvdovz February 6 2017, 19:54:11 UTC

To show they can do whatever the hell they want in their backyard.

nairiporter February 6 2017, 19:55:20 UTC

But they quickly backed off soon after the US raised a hue and cry about it. They seemed rather eager to return the drone pronto. I would say they just made a stupid decision and didn't know what to do with it.

Thread 9

dreamville_bg February 6 2017, 19:58:08 UTC

Question. So what's a US drone doing so far away from US shores, and under China's nose? Are there any Chinese drones in the Pacific, say, a few hundred km away from California? How would the US public react if there were any?

I know. Those are more than one question, and I'm probably just playing devil's advocate. But if we answer these, perhaps we'd at least partially know why the Chinese behaved the way they did.

mikeyxw February 6 2017, 23:19:52 UTC

A few hundred km would be no issue at all. Within 12 nautical miles, my guess is that it'd be the same reaction as when China's navy passed within 12 nautical miles of Alaska when Pres. Obama was visiting the state, which was a bit of a shrug.

As long as the drone wasn't exploring for oil or doing any fishing, it was likely not violating any laws.

dreamville_bg February 7 2017, 07:30:21 UTC

"Likely"?

Do you have laws against trespassing in the US? Do you just "shrug off" violations of those laws?

mikeyxw February 7 2017, 09:38:30 UTC

We certainly do, and if China had illegally entered our waters, I expect there would be some consequences.

However, innocent passage is allowed even within the 12 mile limit that defines territorial waters and freedom on navigation is allowed outside of it. The beef China has with the freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea is that the US calls them freedom of navigation and China thinks of them as innocent passage.

Thread 13