China Agrees to Return Seized Drone, Ending Standoff, Pentagon Says | Hacker News Reader

China Agrees to Return Seized Drone, Ending Standoff, Pentagon Says

nytimes.com

Every single drone should have a self-destruct rail inside. When the drone disappears, or is seized, it can be activated. The terms of the destruct can be set on deployment. For example, if you're deploying the drone in a theatre of war and it is moved outside of the scope, it can be set to explode unless a cryptographic key is transmitted in time.

My guess is as more and more parts of war are automated with drones, the latest tech will have to be protected somehow.

"The Chinese government were hailed as heroes today, as they foiled a plot by the US to terrorize key shipping lines with a mobile targeting bomb."

"Two seaman were killed and another critically injured when the explosive was remotely triggered"

Yep, after they seized a U.S. drone and attempted to dismantle it.

Yea, that is called a torpedo or a missile.

Also, it is a terrible idea because it provides a way for the other side to prevent drones from performing their missions.

China also seized South Korea's newly developed K21 IFV few years ago.

The static model had been shipped on Maersk shipping for display at an international arms convention.

The Maersk cargo ship made a stop in Hong Kong and Chinese authorities seized it on some technicality and kept it for weeks before returning it.

"Our basic directive is to rely on the war industries of the imperialist countries and of our enemy at home. We have a claim on the output of the arsenals of London as well as of Hanyang, and, what is more, it is to be delivered to use by the enemy’s own transport corps. This is the sober truth, not a joke."

-- Mao Tse Tung

It looks like nothing has changed.

"We've finished X-Raying and scanning it, you can have it back now"

US did the same thing with MiG-25 after a Russian pilot defected in 1976 [0].

Recently, after a NATO exercise in Europe, US sent an inert Hellfire missile through Cuba and Cubans confiscated it in transit. They returned it sometime after but everyone assumes that Russians/Chinese paid Cuba to have a look at it and have dissected it before Cubans sent it back. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Belenko

[1] https://www.rt.com/usa/328303-cuba-missile-usa-accident/

Chinese presidential plane was sent to Boeing in San Antonio for maintenance. When it was returned it was found to be full of bugs (microphones not insects).

Is this a famous ~confirmed incident?

Not sure if the tilda is meant as a negation (unfortunately, many people also use it for "approximately", which is a near-antonym), but:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1769642.stm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jan/19/news/mn-23654

It probably did happen.

I use ~ for approximately all the time, I hope I'm not being technically incorrect?

Inspecting plane from defector or mis-shipped missile is different from grabbing a piece of equipment floating near a naval vessel in the middle of international water.

All is fair in love and war. What are you going to do, start a war over this? No. Well then. I guess everyone is free to steal and copy whatever they want to... as long as they have enough force to back up their moves. Just as it has always been.

Umm, Captain, a couple of these solder points look very fresh.

Exactly this

Lots of American equipment have self destruction/disablement systems for occasions like this

I wonder if this drone has similar capabilities

Aquatic drones can't have that capability.

It's pretty hard to transmit and receive radio waves underwater, so these drones are autonomous. They're given a mission, they go do it, and then they return to a spot to be manually retrieved. Apparently, while a group of drones was being retrieved, china "accidentally" snagged one. Back to the capablities though, since these drones are autonomous, you probably wouldn't know one was taken until you do a count after retrieval. Once it's gone, you might know where it is by GPS, but not who has it. Even if you can say, "Hey, it's in China", you don't know what it's immediate environment is. All of those things make self destructing a pretty dangerous/irresponsible thing to do.

Self destruct doesn't have to mean a huge kaboom. "rm -rf /", followed by a high enough voltage to fry the chips might be enough.

I wonder if it has some GPS bad zones programmed into it, if it finds itself in e.g. Chinese territory, it could do the above.

It's a civilian-level drone, built "mostly" with commercial (unclassified) tech. According to the Pentagon the people picking it up weren't even military, but rather civilian contractors: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/china-smooth-r.... Although some rumors suggest the drone was in fact looking for Chinese subs.

I would probably fit my drones with undetectable rootkit viruses and innocuous-looking USB ports, ready to infect some unwitting engineer's pirated copy of Windows XP.

Worth noting that it was completely unclassified, so likely did not have anything worth checking out.

Or, "Sorry, we dropped it. Here are the pieces."

They probably built it, so why would they do that?

That is sheer, baseless, unsubstantiated accusation and finger pointing. That does not help in resolving issues.

It's hardly baseless, as it has many historical parallels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Belenko

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident

It's extremely justified, and I'd expect any country that cares for its sovereignty to do the same.

It is the opinion of almost every other country in the world that these are international waters. China doesn't get to change the facts of international law just by claiming there's a "dispute".

I looked back through your comment history. I don't mean to accuse you of anything, but if I were someone from the Chinese government whose job was to argue for the positions of the Chinese government on HN, I think I would sound...a lot like you.

That's a personal attack, albeit with a fig leaf of nasty insinuation. You can't comment like that here, and smearing other users as shills without evidence is also not ok. Please don't do these things again.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13202981 and marked it off-topic.

Understood.

I wonder if you could suggest a better way to phrase this point. Like, is it out of bounds to say that someone's comment here and comments in the past sound to me like Chinese propaganda? I guess that is what I was trying to say (and I grant that I didn't say it well).

Sorry for causing a scene.

I don't think there's a civil way to say that because it's fundamentally a personal slight for a political reason. In fact it's a kind of name calling, which the site rules don't allow.

I do think it's ok for users to remind each other that HN isn't for pure politics. But not to score a political point.

Thanks for replying so politely!

While I have your attention, I'd like to register a concern about this bright line it sounds like you're trying to draw.

A tactic currently being employed by Trump is to claim that questions of fact or science are actual political questions. For example, his surrogates have said that NASA is "politicizing" climate science [1].

I'm concerned about this expansion of the boundaries of what are considered political questions into things that aren't because it has a chilling effect: Once something is deemed political, there are certain places where we can't talk about it. But for my part, I think a world where a politician can prevent us from having a (civil) discussion about e.g. climate change, or net neutrality, or the implications of tax cuts for the rich, or whatever, on HN merely by declaring it to be "political" is a pretty bad world. Not just because I like talking to smart people about science and technology, but because it prevents us from organizing to become a force for good.

The OP's point was, it seemed to me, about the facts of international law and a critique of the media. It certainly was inflamatory (as was my response), but if law and the media are off topic because they're political, well, doesn't it follow that net neutrality, Google/Facebook's responses to fake news, and so on, are also political? Do you want to cut off conversations about those topics too?

Maybe there are certain topics you'd want to rule out from HN because they inevitably lead to flamewars. Moreover maybe most or all of those topics are things politicians also disagree about (and thus are "political"). But perhaps the thing that you are against isn't "political" discussions per se, but rather flamewars on touchy subjects. Or, something like that?

I am afraid that over the next four years, things we used to think of as factual or scientific questions will be reframed as political questions, on which everyone is entitled to their opinion, and which we can't discuss in civilized places like HN. In fact I think we're already seeing this reframing.

Anyway, running an online community is hard, I don't pretend to know how to do that. Good luck, and I'll try to follow the rules, whatever you all decide.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/22/nasa-ear...

Unpresidented

History buffs will realise that situations like this can be done purposefully. For example the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident in August 2, '64. [0] A wary China inspects the device, hands it back and defuses the situation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

The Gulf of Tokin involved an actual "attack"/rounds fired not seizure of equipment. It's a different order of magnitude.

"even today we're finding that--as in the Tonkin Gulf incident--very equivocal, limited evidence as to who did what and why and what happened is being used right now by hawks to encourage us to engage in hostilities again." -- Dan Ellsberg [0]

This is history, so I tend not to get too worked up about it. What I will say is we only know, what we are told and the truth is getting pretty slippery. That quote above was by Daniel Ellsberg who was the ^Snowden^/^Assange^ of his time. An insider who saw the nonsense behind the LBJ/McNamara explanations of Vietnam and released the Pentagon Papers.

Read the post below and if you have questions about this, ask Dan himself ~ https://twitter.com/DanielEllsberg

[0] "Why the Gulf of Tonkin Matters 50 Years Later (1/2)" ~ http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=...

Hence "attack".

I think that's actually bootload's point? A policy of measured, non-violent responses to perceived aggression -- like China's response here -- is a good way to avoid being tricked into war. (Compared to North Vietnam's response to our encroachment in the Gulf of Tonkin, which many suspect was an attempt to goad them into war.)

The article presents many opinions as though they are facts.

One of the crucial aspects to understanding the South China Sea situation is the dispute of the sovereignty of the waters. The New York Times doesn't provide context on the sovereignty disputes, or provide the Chinese argument. Instead misleads its readership by quoting "international waters in the South China Sea."

This is an editorial error of enormous magnitude affecting the quality of the publication. An non politicized publication would write "disputed waters in the South China Sea."

Indeed, you can read back only a couple of years where US media reporting did exactly this. The recent propaganda push inside US media has been to use the term "international waters" in association with the geography to affect public opinion.

I notice that this incident was less than 50 miles from the Philipines (main Luzon/Manila Island) and Subic Bay, and outside of the "Nine Dash Line" of territorial waters claimed by China so if this article wanted to be inflammatory, it certainly could be. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Scarborough+Shoal/@13.7576...

Do I need to read more than 10 sentences before getting to this part of the article?

The overseas edition of The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, said on its social media account Saturday night that the Chinese capture of the drone was legal because rules about drone activities had not been clearly written. “This is the gray area,” the newspaper said. “If the U.S. military can send the drone, surely China can seize it.”

In its statement, the Defense Ministry scolded the United States over what it called its longstanding practice of conducting “close-in reconnaissance and military surveys” in waters claimed by China.

It's true that quote is in the last half of the article, but it seems to provide the context that you say is missing, or do you think the article should be several times longer?

The NYT has extensively covered the South China Sea sovereignty dispute. You can write the Public Editor if you think this is an actual error, but you'll probably get a chuckle.

Agree. Every article doesn't need to recap the context. The average Times reader is no doubt familiar with China's and the UNCLOS's conflicting definitions of territorial waters around the South China Sea.

The problem is that the Times takes a side rather than reporting independently.

It's a glaring editorial error to present a dispute as being concluded with your own opinion. That's what the Times has done. Whether its readership is aware of it or not.

I furthermore disagree with the assertion that the average Times reader is no doubt familiar with the context.

I find it troubling you present the context improperly yourself (China v. UNCLOS) in writing your opinion here.

> I find it troubling you present the context improperly yourself (China v. UNCLOS)

Disputes are fractal. Any summary will be incomplete to some observer.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which China is a party (but the United States is not) [1], ruled with the Philippines on the South China Sea's territoriality being drawn by UNCLOS rules. Others in the region disputing China's claims take similar positions [2]. The UUV was seized closer to the Philippine shore than to mainland China.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_t...

[2] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-and-Indonesia...

Article 298 of UNCLOS states is has no authority over sovereignty disputes.

http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/uncl...

Disclaimer: I am not an international lawyer. Please consult one before annexing others' claimed territories.

Article 298 limitedly exempts Section 2. This makes sense because the purpose of UNCLOS is to settle maritime territoriality disputes.

See §§ 397 - 412 of the ruling [1] for the Tribunal's reasons Article 298 does not apply to many salient pieces of the Philippines' case, including those pertaining to "Scarborough Shoal" (§ 400), "Mischief Reef, Second Thomas Shoal, or Subi Reef" (§ 401) and others.

[1] http://www.pcacases.com/web/sendAttach/1506 page 140

Thanks JumpCrisscross.

It's unfortunately going to take a few days to read this in full.

Reporting both claims equally when one of them is clearly bogus is ruining US politics already.

"Bogus" is a strong term. China seems to be breaching UNCLOS, which it agreed to. That said, it wants extraordinary rights similar to those exercised by the United States (which is not a UNCLOS signatory).

Ultimately, international law is a convenient fiction. South China Sea territoriality will be decided by the United States weighing the benefits of freedom of navigation against the cost of enforcing UNCLOS boundaries with force. Sending drones and forcing them to be returned is less risky (and less effective) than piloting manned ships through the area.

According to the article, the drone had surfaced adjacent to a US manned ship. Your last sentence appears to not match up with that.

They also backed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and disobeyed orders to not publish info on the pantagon papers.

They used to be a legitimate news organization and I agree with parent post.

That's a good idea. I'll write them an email.

Do China's claims really extend to where the drone was seized? According to reports, it was about 50nm northwest of the Phillipines. As best as I can determine, it happened outside the nine-dash line, which is what the dispute is over.

If their claims go that far, that seems almost absurd.

Is "in association with the geography" a tacit admission that the Chinese claim[0] appears ludicrous when you look at it? I could jot down lines on a map[1] too, and it wouldn't make it any more sane.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-Dash_Line

Nope.

The point I was making is that across US broadcasting, there has been an attempt to associate the geography "South China Sea" with the term "International Waters."

My understanding is that despite a lot of hilariously vague statements, the Chinese have never made a formal claim to this area, and what limited claims they have made have been rejected by tribunal in the Hague.

Thus, international waters.

That's the understanding one would get reading exclusively American media coverage.

The long and short? The Qing Dynasty had territory over these islands before WWII. It was never a powerful naval power. The Japanese took them and more during WWII. The US (San Fran Conference, Cairo Conference, Potsdam Conference) demanded the Japanese remove themselves from these islands (including Spratlys, Paracels), and give islands back to China (including, notably, Taiwan). China, during the Cold War, traded some ownership back and forth with Vietnam of Pacific islands in SCS in order to avoid their being involved in Cold War disputes.

Now China is seeking, for National Security purposes, to build infrastructure (including civilian, rescue, emergency response, shipping and military) on these islands. The United States sees this as area access/area denial - it could be denied the ability to project naval power into this area. The Chinese want to be able to protect naval trade, and protect themselves from their historical vulnerability (embargo).

US has tried multiple ways to prevent or slow this project. A recent effort to get the Philippines to contest the waters failed when the Philippines backed off of their claim.

Western reporting likes to present the South China Sea as a consensus, but it's not. It's been very difficult for the United States to get Asian Countries - those involved in the area - to side with the United States about the waters and their future.

> when the Philippines backed off of their claim

UNCLOS ruled in favour of the Philippines. The Philippines are not willing to enforce their claim against an emerging regional hegemony. That's different from backing off.

> The Chinese want to be able to protect naval trade, and protect themselves from their historical vulnerability (embargo)

This is a fair thing to want, but it conflicts with neighbouring states' claimed rights to freedom of navigation. It is in the United States' and China's neighbors' interests to prevent China from achieving regional naval hegemony. Presenting this morally just serves to confuse the issue.

> It's been very difficult for the United States to get Asian Countries - those involved in the area - to side with the United States

India and Indonesia, amongst others, have supported the ruling [1].

[1][ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-and-Indonesia...

UNCLOS has no authority on sovereignty disputes, right?

http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/uncl...

See my answer here [1]. You are mis-interpreting Article 298. Its potential effect on the Tribunal's jurisdiction was argued by China and struck down by the Tribunal [2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13203195

[2] http://www.pcacases.com/web/sendAttach/1506 §§ 397 - 412

The country of Taiwan has a better claim to these waters then China.

Well, that's because it's international waters.

There's also an attempt by China to associate the geography "Taiwan" with "China", when it's obviously a separate country.

> Well, that's because it's international waters.

We're back to pretending opinions are facts, are we?

> There's also an attempt by China to associate the geography "Taiwan" with "China", when it's obviously a separate country.

Interestingly here, Taiwan's constitution and official policy does not claim there are two Chinese states. The United States and world consensus also recognizes the People's Republic of China as a government, but not Taiwan.

Do you explicitly disagree with ROC, PRC and the US about the status of Taiwan as a separate country?

Does anyone else here remember the Iraqi Information Minister giving a "there are no Americans in Baghdad" speech while US tanks literally rolled past in the background?

It was Iraqi opinion that they were winning the war. It was US opinion that the US was winning the war. One of those was a fact and the other wasn't.

The official status of Taiwan is playing politics. Nations stopped recognizing Taiwan as a result of PRC's ascendancy. But the PRC does not govern there.

Technically Crimea belongs to Ukraine and most of the world acknowledges this.

But in all practical realty--de facto--Crimea is now Russian territory. It's not foolish to acknowledge this.

Interestingly, the Taiwanese government was on the UN security council for a number of years after being driven off the mainland.

> there has been an attempt to associate the geography "South China Sea" with the term "International Waters."

Yes, for the same reasons the "Indian Ocean" isn't India's territory.

That's a straw man based on etymology. It's wasteful to argue a straw man.

It actually makes publications LESS credible if they were to publish chinese government propaganda.

I agree with you that it is a common American sentiment that American propaganda is credible, and opposing opinions and facts are not.

It's also Canadian propaganda, and German propaganda, and who knows how many other media sources publish similar information.

Personally, I find it very understandable when two countries or cultures have differing viewpoints about what's right or not. However, I think it's imperative for their integrity to accept rules and international courts if you sign up for it. Many countries have been culpable of such incidents, and they're always in the wrong for unilaterally breaking such agreements. This time, it's China doing so. Don't sign up for common rules if you don't intend on following them.

Sure there are propaganda and opinions everywhere, but the question of integrity and ethics is clear in this example.

This was outside of the purported 9 dash line. So this was not in disputed waters.

This is a great article for a role reversal. Imagine a Chinese military "research" ship off California gathering data on "water salinity". There would be calls for nukes.

Russia, China, and other nations regularly send ships much closer to the US than this ship was to China.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/25/pentagon-russian-... https://www.rt.com/usa/russian-nuclear-sub-gertz-097/

The US response was:

> "We respect the freedom of all nations, as reflected in international law, to operate military vessels beyond the territorial seas of other nations."

Here are reports of Russian plans and ships patrolling the Californian coast in 2014:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-jets-fly-to-california-co...

Actually, no. Back during the Cold War, Russia sent "trawlers" close to the US all of the time. No nukes were fired.

No nukes were fired.

Only by some divine Providence. Or this guy:

Vasili Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov

Thank you Vasili Arkhipov, the man who stopped nuclear war https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/27/vasili...

You (and Almost Everyone You Know) Owe Your Life to This Man. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/25/you-and-a...

This makes the point. (We are still around after all, so yes, "no nukes were fired")

I think you're missing the point. The US policy is symmetric. Here's the agreement signed with the USSR to try to reduce the possibility of collisions etc with the "trawlers" that the USSR had parked in international waters outside US naval bases:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80%93Soviet_Incidents_...

"Off the coast of California" isn't really a good comparison though.

The sub was seized something like 50 miles from Subic Bay in the Philippines. In international waters. A long way from the coast of China.

So it would be more like a Russian sub cruising around Venezuela or something.

The location is more than 200 miles away from the nearest thing that China claims is an island. But that's just for economic stuff; 12 miles is the limit for sovereignty.

I believe sighting of Russian fish trawlers (actually sig intelligence vessel) off Florida coast during earlier launches of space shuttles was pretty common. That didn't lead to nuclear wars.

not really. russia hacked our election and we did nothing

Do you mean brought out information about Clinton and her promoters trying to hack the election by getting questions to debates beforehand, rigging the election against Sanders, and when the head of the DNC was found to be only working on Clinton's behalf having to resign then given a juicy job in Clinton's foundation? Well certainly!

I believe sighting of Russian fish trawlers (actually sig intelligence vessel) off Florida coast during earlier launches of space shuttles was pretty common. That didn't lead to nuclear wars.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com