A Chinese Navy fleet led by the aircraft carrier Shandong sailed near Taiwan en route to the eastern Pacific, where it is scheduled to carry out exercises, official media reported today.
The passage of the ships was registered about 400 kilometers south of the island on Wednesday, hours before the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, met in Los Angeles with the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, a meeting flatly rejected by China.
According to a statement from the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense, the Shandong was detected as it passed through the Bashi Channel – a section that separates Taiwan from the Philippines – in transit to the eastern Pacific, where it was scheduled to begin its first long-range maneuvers on Wednesday.
He Shandong is China’s second aircraft carrier – the first domestically manufactured – and has been in service since 2022.
The military ministry also denounced the “special patrol operation” announced this week by the Chinese Army in the waters of the Strait of Formosa, which it described as “attempts to intimidate Taiwan and destabilize regional peace and the status quo, improper behavior of a modern and responsible country”, collected the official agency CNA.
At the moment it is not known if the deployment of the aircraft carrier is part of said operation, which began early on Wednesday and whose duration has not been specified either.
Analysts quoted by the Chinese official newspaper Global Times considered that the crossing of the Shandong “demonstrates that the second aircraft carrier of the People’s Liberation Army is prepared for offshore operations and to safeguard China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
According to the expert Zhang Xuefengthis type of exercise is to be expected, since the aircraft carrier you can only test all your maneuvering capabilities with fleets in the open sea.
Another source who asked not to be named said the eastern Pacific waters east of Taiwan and south of Japan are a “vital strategic position” to encircle the island and prevent foreign forces from militarily interfering in the Taiwan issue.
The Chinese military deployment occurs amid new tensions between Washington and Beijing on account of the stopover made by Tsai in the United States on the occasion of her trip to Central America and the meeting she held yesterday Wednesday with the speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy.
China today condemned said scale and activities, accused Washington of “collusion” with the island and advanced that it will respond with “resolute and effective measures to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
For its part, the US asked the Asian country “not to overreact” to the meeting and insisted that the Taiwanese president’s passage through its territory is “a stopover” on her trip to Central America, according to the White House spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre.
The situation is reminiscent of the one that occurred last August, when the visit to Taiwan of the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosiangered Beijing, which called it a “farce” and “deplorable treason”.
In response, China imposed sanctions on Pelosi, suspended dialogue with the US in several important areas and carried out military exercises in the Taiwan Strait of an intensity unprecedented in decades.
The island is one of the biggest sources of conflict between China and the United States, mainly because Washington is Taiwan’s main arms supplier and would be its biggest military ally in the event of a war with China.
China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, which it views as a rogue province since Kuomintang nationalists withdrew there in 1949 after losing the civil war to the communist army.
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