China on Saturday slammed the US for “making a fuss” over the seizure of its underwater drone in the disputed South China Sea, saying it will return the device in an “appropriate manner” even as it called its action as “professional and responsible”.
The Chinese Defence Ministry said it had taken the drone for verification and accused the US of “making a fuss” over the incident after US President-elect Donald Trump accused China of “stealing” the US Navy research drone.
Defence Ministry spokesperson Yang Yujun dismissed the US allegations, insisting China had been “professional and responsible” to take the drone. “We had to examine and verify the device in a bid to avoid any harm it might cause to the safety of navigation and personnel,” he said in a late night statement.
Yang said the drone would be returned “in an appropriate manner”, hinting that Beijing may carry out its own examination of it but did not specify any time line. He said China was strongly opposed to such reconnaissance activities and it was highly inappropriate for the US to make a fuss over the incident.
His statement came after Trump joined the war of words with a tweet saying that “China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented (unprecedented) act”.
Though the US and China have been experiencing tensions over the strategic South China Sea (SCS) for the past few years, this is the first time Beijing picked up a US drone, taking it to a different level. Despite claiming almost all of SCS, China said there was never a threat to the freedom of the navigation in the most important trade route through which trillions of dollars of goods pass.