Donald Trump's spokesman Saturday credited a tweet from the president-elect as the the main factor in China's decision to return an underwater drone to the U.S. Navy that was seized on Thursday.
The spokesman, Jason Miller, posted this on Twitter:
Miller's tweet included a link to a report about the Chinese Defense Ministry's announcement that it would return the drone seized by a naval vessel in the South China Sea.
The post apparently referred to a tweet Trump sent earlier Saturday slamming Beijing for the capture:
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said that "through direct engagement with Chinese authorities, we have secured an understanding that the Chinese will return the [drone] to the United States," The Hill reports.
Sr. Col. Yang Yujun, a spokesman for the Chinese Defense Ministry, said that Beijing would return the vehicle.
"Upon confirming that the device was a U.S. underwater drone, the Chinese side decided to transfer it to the U.S. side in an appropriate manner," he said, CNN reports. "China and the United States have been communicating about this process."
But Trump later suggested, also on Twitter, that maybe Beijing should keep the drone:
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