China on Tuesday returned an underwater research drone of the United States Navy seized in international waters of the disputed South China Sea last week. The drone seizure had led to fiery Twitter posts by US President-elect Donald Trump who told China to 'keep the stolen drone.'
The underwater Ocean Glider drone was reportedly handed over to a US Navy destroyer by the same Chinese Navy ship that seized it last week.
On December 16, the US had demanded that China should immediately release the drone "unlawfully" seized by the mainland in international waters. The incident hit a new point of tension between the US and Chinese defence forces in the disputed waters.
Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook had said that China must comply with all of its obligations under international law and return the drone.
Trump, however, was not in a mood to demand the device back. He instead tweeted that China should keep the drone they "stole" from the US. "We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back - let them keep it!" Trump tweeted on December 17.
However, China has decided to return the drone. "After friendly consultations between the Chinese and US sides, the handover work for the US underwater drone was smoothly completed in relevant waters in the South China Sea at midday on December 20," the Chinese government said in a statement.
China had initially said that the drone incident would be handled by them in an "appropriate" manner, however, after Trump's tweets, it said that the issue will be "resolved successfully".
"Chinasteals United States Navy research drone in international waters -- rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act," Trump had tweeted.
China, however, had rejected Trump's accusation that it stole the drone, saying that the device was seized by the Chinese government to prevent "harm" to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
"First of all we did not like the word stealing. This is also not accurate. As really what happened you can see from Defence Ministry statement that the Chinese navy found this unidentified device and examined in a professional manner to verify it," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Monday.
"No matter how they see this unidentified device, most important thing is that Chinese navy took a professional and responsible decision to do this in order to prevent from causing harm to freedom of navigation," she added.
The South China Sea dispute involves island and maritime claims in the region among several sovereign states around the area, including China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam. Many international non-claimant nations, however, want the South China Sea to remain as international waters considering a high proportion of the world's trade passes through the region.
The US also conducts operations around the sea to oversee the "freedom of navigation" in the region.
