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The Chinese navy has launched its largest-ever aircraft carrier drills in the Western Pacific as Beijing flexes its military muscle to push back against the United States and its allies, according to foreign defense officials and analysts.
China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy’s second aircraft carrier, the Shandong, will join more than 20 other Chinese warships on Tuesday in waters between Taiwan, the Philippines and the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, two Asian security officials said.
“This is the highest number of Chinese aircraft carriers we have seen so far participating in training,” said Su Ziyun, an analyst at the National Defense Security Research Institute, a think tank backed by the Ministry of National Defense in Taipei. “They expressed dissatisfaction with the various military exercises going on in the surrounding areas.”
According to statistics from Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, 20 PLA warships appeared in the waters surrounding Taiwan in the 24 hours as of early Tuesday morning. The company gave no details but disclosed the news after announcing on Monday that the Shandong ship had sailed through the Bashi Channel that separates Taiwan from the Philippines and entered the Pacific. The Japanese military also reported that eight PLA Navy ships entered the Pacific through the Miyako Strait south of Okinawa.
An East Asian national security official said the ships spotted by Japan – six guided-missile destroyers and two frigates – were continuing in a direction that would rendezvous with the Shandong ship. Another Asian military official said the carrier was also being tracked by some People’s Liberation Army ships operating near Taiwan.
The two active aircraft carriers of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, the Liaoning and Shandong, have carried out multiple training missions in the Western Pacific since 2021, but only in small-scale ship formations.
“The typical escort we’ve seen in the past is four destroyers or frigates plus a support ship, so the number this time is much larger,” Su said.
Beijing’s move follows a series of US-led military exercises involving more than two dozen countries held at four locations across China.
In late August, the United States held naval exercises with Japan, Australia and the Philippines in the South China Sea, followed by bilateral sailings with Philippine vessels and joint coast guard operations with Thailand in disputed waters.
In the first week of September, U.S., South Korean and Canadian naval vessels sailed together in the Yellow Sea to commemorate the anniversary of the Korean War and the U.S.-South Korea alliance, in what analysts said was their largest joint naval exercise near the Yellow Sea. China ten years later.
Last week, a U.S. destroyer and a Canadian frigate passed through the Taiwan Strait after the U.S. Navy conducted operations with allies including Japan and Canada in the East China Sea.
A joint exercise led by the United States and Indonesia and involving 19 countries is underway in the Southeast Asian country.
Neither the Chinese Ministry of National Defense nor the People’s Liberation Army announced aircraft carrier exercises.
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