McCain: US 'must not stand' for China drone seizure

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.”