China Says It Will Return the Underwater Drone It Seized From the US (thehill.com) 199
An anonymous reader quotes The Hill:
China said Saturday it will return the unmanned U.S. drone it seized in the South China Sea, calling the issue "hyped up" by the U.S. "Upon confirming that the device was a U.S. underwater drone, the Chinese side decided to transfer it to the U.S. side in an appropriate manner," said the spokesman for the Chinese Defense Ministry, Sr. Col. Yang Yujun, according to CNN. "China and the United States have been communicating about this process. It is inappropriate -- and unhelpful for a resolution -- that the U.S. has unilaterally hyped up the issue. We express our regret over that."
A Defense Ministry spokesman added that China opposes U.S. "surveillance and military surveys in waters facing China...and demands the U.S. cease such activities. China will stay alert over relevant U.S. activities and will take necessary measures to counter them."
A Defense Ministry spokesman added that China opposes U.S. "surveillance and military surveys in waters facing China...and demands the U.S. cease such activities. China will stay alert over relevant U.S. activities and will take necessary measures to counter them."
Returned in a box (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm sure the US underwater drone, by the time it is returned will have been photographed, scanned, dismantled and every ounce of anything copied. It's how it works.
As if. Why wouldn't they just use the original blueprints they probably stole several times over by now?
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Okay, maybe the Chinese suspected something different. It's possible they thought that this was secretly something special, but we know better now: the fact that we're hearing about this at all means that it was just a mundane instrument.
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There IS technology there.
My father was an oceanographer in the 1970's who dropped current meters into the ocean all over the world.
The Russians would collect them all the time and dissect them.
There be chips and instruments and all sorts of thingies in them there things, and not all of it is "off the shelf".
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They probably just downloaded it's data and were annoyed that all it had were current and temp readings, or something equally oceanographic, but not very espionage oriented.
Re: Returned in a box (Score:2)
They finished destroying it for them???
Confucious say (Score:5, Insightful)
"It is inappropriate -- and unhelpful for a resolution -- that the U.S. has unilaterally hyped up the issue. We express our regret over that.""
They express regret over the US being upset at their actions. Umm, okay.
Re: Confucious say (Score:2)
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They are making the US look rash and childish. It's going to be a common theme for the next four years.
Good thing that Obama is still in office huh? Never mind that China pulled the drone in within sight of the operating vessel. China knows it can pull this bullshit with Obama in office, see what happened with Iran and them seizing sailors in international waters and there being zero consequences. And in multiple other cases where other countries have acted as belligerents towards US military vessels with zero consequences over the last 8 years. The incoming president(Trump) is likely not going to take t
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We hit china's embassy at least once https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] that was in 1999.
not saying we did it, but .... looks like we hit Moscow's too http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ru... [cbsnews.com]
the moscow hit looks like a tit for tat
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It's going to be a common theme for the next four years.
Only if it's effective and helps them get what they want......otherwise they'll switch to a different strategy like a rational person.
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The only foreign policy 'boo-boo' so far was Trump talking to President Tsai and the Chinks getting a hemorrhage over it
What makes you think that was a mistake or even a bad thing?
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Is it a 'bad thing' ? Hard to say. It's certainly... disruptive, but disruptive isn't necessarily bad.
However what makes it a mistake is that I have absolutely ZERO faith that Trump did it on purpose, or was even dimly aware of the hornets nest he stepped on when he did it.
In Chess sometimes its a brilliant move to sacrifice your queen; but when its done without even fully aware of what you are doing, by a neophyte who barely knows chess... it still might be a brilliant move... but it probably wasn't, and i
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There is plenty of evidence that he hasn't got a clue about this stuff. He described China's actions as "unprecedented", when it's actually happened many times before and is SOP for captured spy vessels.
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The only foreign policy 'boo-boo' so far was Trump talking to President Tsai and the Chinks getting a hemorrhage over it
What makes you think that was a mistake or even a bad thing?
It wasn't - hence the sarcasm quotes '' around 'boo-boo'
Honestly, once Trump is sworn in, if Chaeeena wants to toss him around, he should either announce an end to the recognition of the 'one-China' policy, or recognize Taiwan as the 'one China'. Another option - stick to the one China policy, but recognize Taiwan as a separate and independent country - not as Republic of China, but as Republic of Taiwan
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Careful what you ask for, you just might get it. The collapse of the second largest economy in the world with 1.5 billion people is not going to happen neatly or quietly. If you think the destruction of Syria was a problem, you ain't seen nothin yet.
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Granted we probably will be, we'll probably be throwing people left and right into the fire to solve our own issues, but we won't have to be.
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Any negative repercussions in the US would be temporary. Companies that rely on Chinese manufacturing will get the hint that it's an unpredictable place to manufacture, and move manufacturing elsewhere. Be it back to the US - Trump's pet cause - or to friendlier countries like Taiwan, Thailand or even Mexico.
Destruction of Syria is only a problem for the Twitter followers of that poor 7 year old girl from Aleppo who's gone offline. We need to stop getting our heartstrings tugged. Europe tried opening
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Not a boo-boo. that was calculated. watch and learn. Bretton Woods era is over, and China is about to be collapsed. They are in a terrible position demographically speaking, at a time when we are about to pull the rug out from under them, their whole economy is base don american consumerism, when we shut the doors to them, they will collapse, they have no consumer economy of their own, and demographically their one child policy literally set them up for economic destruction. China is F'ed buddy. ... F'ed.
My quotes '' around 'boo-boo' was meant to be sarcastic. I didn't think Trump stepped on it.
I think the US should respond to the last few years of Chinese misbehavior - be it the South China sea islands, this drone abduction, secretly supporting North Korea, et al by doing a number of things. One would be the 35% tariffs that Trump said he'd put - he should do that to China right away. That should force companies to shift their manufacturing out of China and either to the US, or failing that, at least
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That is not going to happen, if any he will increase the military that Obama has tried to gut.
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He did say he wanted to reduce military spending, especially things he considers to be wasteful. In fact just recently he knocked $3.5bn off the value of Lockheed Martin with a single tweet about how their F35 is too expensive, not to mention suggesting Air Force One should be cancelled.
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President Trump Is Likely To Boost U.S. Military Spending By $500 Billion To $1 Trillion [forbes.com]
Trump's military will have more troops and more firepower — if he can find more money [militarytimes.com]
Does he want to cut WASTEFUL spending like the Navy weapon that by supplying the projectile will cost more than the gun, or an aircraft that is considered by some as inferior such as the F-35? that a retrofit for an existing aircraft would
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Citations please!
What would be the point? You might as well "cite" the sage quotations of the guy in the alley down the street whose hobby is inhaling gasoline fumes.
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No, the point is, if you don't like something Trump says, just wait a few days and he'll say something completely different.
The same advice applies if you do like something he says.
He's a Theoden in search of a Wormtongue.
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Donald Trump promises to ‘bomb the hell out of ISIS’ in new radio ad. [slashdot.org]
That takes more ____ (hint: bombs)
That takes more ____ (hint: soldiers)
That takes more ____ (hint: airplanes)
That takes more ____ (hint: intel)
That takes more ____ (hint: money)
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Really?
And who owns the United States?
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According to the Treasury, the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt is China, which owns more than $1.24 trillion in bills, notes, and bonds or about 30% of the over $4 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries. In total, China owns about 10% of publicly held U.S. debt. [about.com]
Trump isn't going to collapse that and China isn't either, you know that.
Disassembled.... (Score:4, Funny)
-parts photographed
-boards xrayed
-wiring logged
-systems exported to solidworks for analysis
We should have it back to you some time in April.
Signed China
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They'll still only get it 70% right, but it'll cost 10% as much to produce.
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Who the hell designs a secret drone WITHOUT a self-destruct button?!
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Errr...it wasn't a secret done. The U.S. Navy, get this, does research on ocean currents, salinity, etc. The only thing secret about it is that you didn't know the Navy used them.
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This might indeed have existed and successfully activated and the Chinese simply neglected to mention it in their press release. Or maybe it was too low-tech for us to bother, or it could be a decoy.
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- China can, not only easily find but also, pluck U.S. military technology from a very large ocean as a demonstration of technical superiority that should not be ignored.
The "drone", along with another one, was being towed behind a USN research vessel that was being trailed by a Chinese ship. The US ship probably can only bring aboard one at a time, so the Chinese ship lowered a launch and swooped over and grabbed the other drone while ignoring the radio calls from the US ship. As a research vessel it's going to be unarmed so they really couldn't do anything to stop them. It's not like the Chinese were secretly tracking the drone and used a helicopter and some special fo
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I do know a bit about maritime law, if the drone was attached to the US vessel in any physical way, it's a huge violation.
Maritime laws have been around for a very long time. and stupid act's like that can lead to very physical trade problems,
maritime people are really different, they have to work together, because simple errors can now cost almost billions of dollars
worth of insurance claims. Also, how do nations retaliate, simple, Customs not clearing a ship or delay ( very few US flag
vessels call China,
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in other words it was not a direlect and was under control and/or supervision at the time it was seized by China.
There is a word for that; piracy.
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China is just sending a clear message that, no only is the U.S. no longer economically competitive, the country is no longer militarily competitive either.
Uh, all "did they make it"jokes aside, Chinese technology is not superior to American. So, that might be their intended message, but I hope people aren't gullible enough to swallow it, at least not in that hyperbolic form.
Having a bunch of factories specializing in cranking out cheap stuff is not the same thing as having technological superiority, nor is it the same thing as being economically dominant (although it obviously does give them a worrying amount of leverage and has fueled rapid growth.)
- Russia steps in and ends the Syrian conflict just to piss USA off.
That's
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It's obvious propaganda on the part of China.
A U.S. Navy 'research' vessel near Chinese disputed waters is perceived, globally, as the same thing as 'Russian Fishing Trawlers' off Cape Canaveral.
It's surprising there were no U.S. security boats nearby to provide an escort. Was that so they could actually get/let China to pick the equipment up?
" wagering on a mutual enrichment given their increased trade with us".
There are several economists, in the U.S. that would heartily disagree with you. Also, regarding
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There are several economists, in the U.S. that would heartily disagree with you.
You seem to be conflating different issues. The proposed mechanism by which you're alleging China could wage economic warfare isn't economics; it's finance. Economics is to finance as voodoo is to medicine. (Partially a symptom of it being such a larger macro view, even "micro"economics.)
Speculation regarding China's motives is a separate issue.
China can economically drop the U.S. with very little pain at this point.
Then put up or shut up. Explain the mechanism by which they could do *something* with the bonds they own to do significantly more damage to us than themselves
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Come to think of it, I guess an intentional bond flood would basically just be an interest rate bomb sucking up capital attracted to the high yields, soooo... crank up the printing presses and spend like mad until the effects wear off? There's only a finite amount of capital that would be tied up by the bonds. It might be as simple as countering that lost capital with tons of stimulus money and then over the next few years figure out s
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- China owns the majority of U.S. debt, hence the U.S. economy.
No, the majority (two-thirds) of US debt is owned by the US. And of the third that is foreign-owned, China is only the largest owner (followed closely by Japan), not majority owner.
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-new unit tests highlight previous unidentified bugs - fixed now
-oil changed
-tires rotated and balanced
-improved drone returned to the ocean
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They'll just take it apart (Score:2)
C.A.T. and M.R.I work well for non-metals, even some metals.
China has all the same (or better) tools the West have.
Even the same brands in some cases.
Even tools and supplies under careful export restrictions.
Your estimate of 72 hours is a bit fast.
It takes hours to carefully uTome chips using TeraHz - CAT.
This is because boards tend to be odd shapes.
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Key omission from American media (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the Chinese news report [sina.com.cn], the statement says it "seize the unknown object because it posed safety concern to the passing sea traffic". Of course, it is an excuse. But given we use the excuse of "freedom of navigation" to intrude within the 12 nm of their claimed island, it is a fair game.
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'Freedom of navigation' is not an excuse, it's a centuries old diplomatic principle.
It's still all colored by realpolitik. If the Chinese had a first rate navy things would be different. As it is, they are just posing for domestic consumption. It could all be different in 20 more years, but first the Chinese need to survive their economic bubble. I'm pretty confident that members of the Chinese central committee have real numbers in front of them and know they could be hanging from light posts in things
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So is "traffic safety concern" a long time principle, no?
That's what principles are good for -- excuses.
Nobody would use morally/politically cause as excuse.
Re:Key omission from American media (Score:4, Insightful)
Similarly, the phrase "waters facing China" in the quote in the summary is a lie. This was the open ocean, not "waters facing China."
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The golden gate straights are 'waters facing China'. 'Facing' doesn't mean anything.
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'Facing' is a poor translation of the semantics of the English word 'Surrounding'.
The word 'Surrounding' can also mean a group of outside assailants pointing spears 'Facing' inward toward a trapped enemy.
It's just poor semantic translation.
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Another omission pointed out in this Hongkong news pager [mingpao.com], translation: the location, while international water, are within the "economic zone" of China; the international law said the owning country has the right to manage commercial activities but does not really say if military survey is allowed. So US takes use of this loophole while China can claim they don't know if it is commercial or military until it retrieved and examined the object.
After all, this is just extension of the SCS game of words in orde
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Difference is that there isn't an island an no one recognizes their claim.
That's what you have been told, just like you were told Iraq had WMD.
1) the interpretation "island" comes down to who pays the "judge"; (for example, one of Taiwan's claim -- a very big island, forgot the name -- was ruled non-island since the ruling party earlier this year was KMT who is more pro-China;
2) The initial claims are not made up by the PRC; they were made up by the ROC (the Taiwanese government) when they still ruled China after WW2 and those claims were agreed to in international treaty signed
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That's what you have been told, just like you were told Iraq had WMD.
That's what the courts told China. China is refusing to abide by now multiple decisions that they were part of, willingly a part of no less.
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That's what the courts told China.
Except that's not a real international court [quora.com], something you are usually not told by the West media. It is a basically an arbitration panel paid for by Philippine (who now falls to China.) Guess how will such a panel rule. you don't abide to arbitration ruling unless you first agree to; and China never did agree to abide such arbitration.
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Except that's not a real international court, something you are usually not told by the West media
Except that China did agree to arbitration. Arbitration is a form of court. They even sent their own people there to act in an official capacity, including having their own people argue the case. China lost in the arbitration and decided to stomp their feet over it, you can bet your ass that if they'd won they'd be throwing it around all the time and saying "look, see how they won." The example case they used is rather piss poor on top of that, on top of that the "explanations" given are mostly wrong be
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Except that China did agree to arbitration.
Citation needed. No, they have never sent any official delegate (see my quora link) and their official spokesman had repeated many times that they were not participating.
An arbitration panel is a form of judgement forum, not a court. A court is something you have to follow but arbitration is not unless you agreed to beforehand; that's why you signed contracts agreeing to arbitration but never a contract agreeing to court ruling.
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[editing error in previous comment; here it is again]
Except that China did agree to arbitration.
Citation needed. No, they have never sent any official delegate (see my quora link) and their official spokesman had repeated many times that they were not participating.
An arbitration panel is a form of judgement forum, not a court. A court is something you have to follow but arbitration is not unless you agreed to beforehand; that's why you signed contracts agreeing to arbitration but never a contract agreeing to court ruling.
Re:Key omission from American media (Score:4, Informative)
There's no alternative interpretation of this bit of maritime.lae. if the original sea mount isn't above water at high tide then it isn't an island and pouring gravel and concrete on it does not make it an island, at least not for the purposes of extending maritime economic zones.
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There's no alternative interpretation of this bit of maritime.lae. if the original sea mount isn't above water at high tide then it isn't an island and pouring gravel and concrete on it does not make it an island, at least not for the purposes of extending maritime economic zones.
Yes, but that sea law is trumped by this one:
He can enforce the law gets to decide what it is...
It's like the Rules of the Road. Sure you had the right of way but gross tonnage wins out over your tiny sailboat every time
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And this the US, by continuing to do flyovers and sailbys, demonstrates that the preeminent naval power has no intention of surrendering the South China Sea to China.
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The isle was called Formosa. I'm unsure why the name was changed. And it isn't because China's becoming an economic competitor to the U.S. that is the issue. The issue is the U.S. has a defense pact with Taiwan and the alleged emperors of mainland China think it makes their dicks look small to have a nation of free Chinese showing China their rinky-dink government is b.s.
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So yes, china is on an expansion grab and is trying to annex the ocean, including unclaimable international waters and the waters of other nations.
China says "what are you going to do, nuke us?" (Score:4, Funny)
So we stole a drone and you freak out. I mean, we already stole islands and you did nothing. Why would you care about a drone?
Production is ramping up. (Score:3)
Chinese bet did not turn out well? (Score:2)
Simple (Score:2)
Subsequent drones should just have their anti-tampering system wired to a bunch of claymores.
I don't for a moment believe that this was as innocuous as the US purports, but then China's actions in the S China Sea are bullshittery of the highest order and need to be directly countered. The US should build an island there, too, PRECISELY like China is.
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Great for hollywood, but not all that realistic in the real world.
Hmmm... I should put that in one of my games... heheheh
Europa (Score:2)
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"It should be arriving shortly at your base" (Score:2)
"Don't mind all its identical manufactured in china friends.."
Copies available on Alibaba (Score:2)
Or made-in-china.com for 1/3 the price of the US version.
We would do exactly the same thing (Score:4, Insightful)
If we found a Chinese drone within a few hundred miles of Los Angeles, you KNOW we would pick it up and turn it into an incident. What they are doing is no different. It's a risk we take deploying drones near other countries.
Re:They know (Score:5, Funny)
Also, Chinese officials looked inside and realized "Oh, we pretty much make all of these components. Not much we could learn from this, I guess."
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Did the US make any part of it?
It was probably only assembled in the US and by assembled I mean they stuck a sticker on it that said "Assembled in the USA" on it.
Re:They know (Score:4, Funny)
To meet the requirements some assembly would have to be done in the US so they leave the last wire connection for the US "factory". It gets shipped over to the US, unpacked, the cover taken off, the worker follows the diagram to connect the final wire (which actually doesn't do anything), puts the cover back on, and packs it back up. Voila, assembled in America.
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Jeans from the USA
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Also, Chinese officials looked inside and realized "Oh, we pretty much make all of these components. Not much we could learn from this, I guess."
Returned with a free firmware update!
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Yes, Trump has stated on Twitter that this is an 'unpresidented' act.
I, for one, am certain Trump will do all in his power to fully retard this situation backward as humanely plausible.
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Not sure about that actually being "fake news".
The Guardian is reporting it. [theguardian.com]
Fox News is reporting it [foxnews.com]
As are numerous other news outlets, both respectable and not so respectable.
Perhaps you've just assumed it was "fake" or perhaps you're helping to disseminate your own version of "fake news".
Hey, it's not so bad that he messed it up. He can blame auto-correct (although unpresidented is not a word any auto-correct should recognize).
The bigger issue is that he's involving himself in international affords befo
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Could they be wrong?
Could they both have made it up? Could they have been fooled by some photoshopper?
Yes, but usually it doesn't get reported so widely and quickly. My first instinct was not to assume it was "fake news". It was, "Did he really tweet that?" and I tried to find other sources.
Should I wait for Breitbart to confirm it?
I understand being skeptical but "fake news" will apparently be a constant refrain to deflect anything negative throughout his Presidency.
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There were no images. Trump actually tweeted that from his account.
No one needs to make this shit up.
He does it to himself.
Here's a thought. The ocean is very big. How is it that the U.S. Military drone was so close to Chinese operations?
Please help me with this because I obviously don't process information very well.
I don't have cable and tend to only read things like actual historic briefs that are validated by multiple observations so I don't have much time to catch your high quality Fox News for it's un
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Because, if you managed to read any of TFA on the subject, the Chinese CG ship was shadowing the US vessel in international waters. When the drone surfaced, the Chinese rushed to grab it. It wasn't accidental. They didn't just go 'look at that'! It was a premeditated effort.
They did it to puff out their claim that the region is Chinese territorial waters. Now they will back down, hand the thing back and smirk a bit. Probably thought it was the last chance to do something like this before Trump takes o
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Yep.
Purely propaganda.
It was a response to Trump's prior bloviation.
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No, seriously, list them.
So the US insisting upon the return of their stolen unmanned vehicle for measuring oceanic conditions that was stolen in an act of piracy from international waters is a threat to world peace? How so? Please explain.
Also, please note that it can be argued that international laws would have allowed them to fire on the pirates for their acts of piracy. (ianal)
Is that what you think would be
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International waters are international waters for a lot of reasons, and any member of the world can insist that international waters remain international waters and piracy (theft at sea of ships or equipment) be stopped.
China doesn't care that those are recognized international waters and is trying to take them over and make them chinas personal swimming pool, screwing over everyone there, including the other countries who's waters they are trying