Drone snatch heralds new competition in South China Sea, think tanks say
South China Morning Post
Chinese analysts say survey device was a threat to national security, as US side demands its return
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 17 December, 2016, 12:53pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 17 December, 2016, 4:30pm
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The seizure of an underwater drone deployed by an American oceanographic vessel in international waters in the South China Sea shows that the Chinese military is capable of fending off the US in the disputed waters, Chinese military and government think tanks said on Saturday.
The incident took place on December 15 northwest of Subic Bay off the Philippines just as the Bowditch, an oceanographic survey ship, was about to retrieve the unmanned, underwater vehicle.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the vehicle was an unclassified “ocean glider” used around the world to gather data on salinity, water temperature and sound speed. The US demanded China return the vehicle.
China took the action because it felt its national security was threatened, according to a People’s Liberation Army officer.
“It’s not the first time that the US deployed a drone in the South China Sea area, but it’s the first time the Chinese military seized it. There must be a reason for it ... It could have threatened the interests of China’s islands, or China’s ships and submarines. It must have been damage to Chinese interests that caused the seizure,” said Zhao Xiaozhuo, the director and a senior colonel at the Centre on China-America Defence Relations at the Academy of Military Science, a PLA think-tank.
China wants to send out a signal that if you spy on us underwater and threaten our national security, we have measures to deal with it
“China has been very restrained about the military intervention from the US. They have been on the edges of Chinese territories all the time. This time the Chinese military took action. It must be because of some actions taken by the US side.”
Zhao said both sides would probably resolve the issue via negotiation.
“This is an incident between China and the US. China has seized a piece of equipment from the US side, they will definitely ask us to return it. But China would say, at least, ‘you can’t behave in this way any more’. China will more or less ask for some conditions. Then the two sides will enter negotiations. It will only be returned when some form of agreement is reached.”
Beijing has not released an official statement on the latest confrontation between China and the US, but a think tank on the mainland said the incident showed that the two militaries had entered a phase of underwater competition.
“China wants to send out a signal that if you spy on us underwater and threaten our national security, we have measures to deal with it,” said Wu Shicun, president of the Chinese government-affiliated National Institute for South China Sea Studies. “On the South China Sea issue, we took in humiliations with a humble view in past years. I think this era has finished.”
Wu and Zhao were both speaking on the sidelines of an international affairs forum in Beijing.
Wu believed the purpose of the drone was to gather intelligence on China’s construction on islands of the South China Sea, or to follow China’s submarine movements.
“Under these circumstances, we can say that the drone has posed a national security threat to China,” he said.
Zhao said there was no need for China to seize the drone in order to find out how it operated.
“It’s not a big deal with the drone itself, we don’t need to seize it to know what it does. It monitors the geography of the sea in that area, the temperature, etc. This data can be useful, and it suggests that the US may consider this area as strategically important, potentially, for the future.”
Zhao said that how the incident would impact China-US relations remained to be seen.
“I don’t think it’s China that wants to provoke tensions. It must be because they have somehow caused us damage.”
“There will be an impact on Sino-US relations, but how big it is depends on a lot of other elements. Of course there will be negotiations between the two military sides, but it’s all relevant to national sentiment and how the media react to it.”
Wang Yiwei, an international relations professor at Renmin University, said the drone was deployed close to the Scarborough Shoal.
“The seizure of this drone showed the power of the Chinese army. It sends out a signal that we are capable of stopping US military intervention,” he said. “The South China Sea tension is not going away. This incident indicated the contest between the two armies has entered into a phase of underwater competition.”
A pentagon statement said the Bowditch was on a routine mission to retrieve the drone.
US media quoted Pentagon sources as saying the Bowditch was about to recover the glider when a Chinese Dalang III class warship approached within 450 metres of the Bowditch, launched a small boat and snatched the drone out of the water.
The boat brought the device back to the Chinese ship, which then headed away.
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