China expects ‘smooth’ resolution of US navy drone case

By Fuat Kabakci

BEIJING (AA) - A state-run newspaper reported Saturday that China expects a “smooth” resolution to a Chinese naval vessel’s seizure of a United States Navy drone in the South China Sea.

The Global Times cited an unnamed People's Liberation Army officer as saying that an unidentified unmanned underwater device had been detected and an investigation launched for navigational security purposes.

The officer said the U.S. had requested that China return the equipment, and that a smooth resolution to the matter was expected as both sides were in contact with one another.

On Friday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters that the U.S. Navy ocean glider was collecting oceanographic data when it was seized by a Dalang Class Chinese ship in international waters 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay in the Philippines.

He said the Chinese ship acknowledged radio requests from the USNS Bowditch that was attempting to collect the drone when it was taken. But the Chinese ship did not heed demands that the craft be returned.

The U.S. has issued a formal diplomatic complaint over the matter, he said.

The incident is the latest confrontation between China and the U.S. in the disputed South China Sea region.

In May, the Pentagon sent a warship through the area to challenge China's maritime claims on artificial islands it built there.

Beijing scrambled jets and deployed its own vessels to challenge the U.S. ship, but no violent confrontation occurred.

China claims most of the sea, which contains some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and potentially lucrative deposits of fossil fuels, as integral parts of their maritime territory.