[The Drive] A fisherman in Indonesia, referred to only as Saeruddin, recently brought in a very different kind of haul, catching what appears to be a Chinese underwater drone. At least two other very similar, if not identical ocean glider-type unmanned undersea vehicles have been found in Indonesian waters in the past two years. This raises questions about whether the Chinese government is discreetly conducting underwater surveys of routes between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, information that could be especially useful for its submarines transiting through these areas while submerged.
Saeruddin reportedly nabbed the drone on Dec. 20, 2020, near the Selayar Islands, an archipelago that is part of Indonesia's South Sulawesi province, in the central part of the sprawling nation, which consists of more than 17,000 individual islands. He subsequently handed it over to local police, who then turned it over to the Indonesian military. |