Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said President Obama’s pattern of weak responses to provocative behavior China encouraged its Navy to seize a U.S. underwater drone from international waters.
“This brazen provocation fits a pattern of increasingly destabilizing Chinese behavior, including bullying its neighbors and militarizing the South China Sea,” McCain, R-Ariz., said Friday. “And this behavior will continue until it is met with a strong and determined U.S. response, which until now the Obama administration has failed to provide. Freedom of the seas and the principles of the rules-based order are not self-enforcing. American leadership is required in their defense. But that leadership has been sorely lacking.”
According to the Pentagon, a Chinese naval vessel seized a six-foot-long ocean glider used to collect data on water conditions.
When a U.S. ship asked the Chinese to return the glider, the Chinese vessel left the area.
McCain called the move by the Chinese a “flagrant violation of the freedom of the seas,” adding, “China had no right to seize this vehicle. And the United States must not stand for such outrageous conduct.”
