Did China Steal U.S. Secrets Following The Drone Seizure?

China’s drone seizure has triggered a lot of reactions in the U.S. one of the lawmakers made a statement suggesting that China may be collecting valuable information about the U.S. Navy technology,

this statement was issued a few hours after Donald Trump said that Beijing should keep the drone.

Senator John McCain also made a statement on CNN’s State of the Union saying that the Chinese were in a position to conduct reverse-engineering, this would enable them to collect valuable technical information on the drone’s design and capabilities.

Senator McCain leads the Senate Armed Services Committees and hence his comments served to stress on the U.S. political tensions after China seized the drone on international waters in the South China Sea. Despite China’s declaration that it would return the submersible, the U.S. critics heightened as the President-elect Donald Trump who criticized the Chinese Navy for seizing the drone and then he later said through a tweet that China should keep.

The communications director for the Trump transition, Jason Miller, was asked to clarify on Trumps tweet and she said that there was a possibility that China was likely to return a chunk of metal and a bag of wires having dismantled it.

Senator McCain referred to China’s actions as a gross violation of international law. McCain also echoed Trump’s Tweet which said that China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters and rips it out of water. This followed comments by the Chinese government which said that it had contacted the U.S. military concerning the incident. Following the direct engagement between Beijing and Washington, Pentagon said that China will return the vehicle.

The Chinese ministry of defense criticized the U.S. for hyping the incident into a diplomatic row as it pledged to return the drone on its Weibo social media account. The ministry also pointed out that it has severally urged the U.S. to stop sending aircrafts and vessels into the region.