Liaoning leads large strike group into western Pacific
Aircraft carrier is escorted by seven warships, including PLA Navy’s most powerful destroyer
Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning has led a larger than usual strike group to train in the western Pacific as tensions rise over Taiwan.
Escorting the Liaoning were five destroyers, including a Type 055 – the most powerful such warship in the Chinese navy – plus one frigate and one supply ship.
The fleet passed through the Miyako Strait between Japan’s Okinawa islands on Monday afternoon to enter the western Pacific before heading south, Tokyo’s defence ministry said.
The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is currently deployed in the Philippine Sea, according to US Navy ship tracking information on Monday. This means the Chinese and US carrier groups would possibly not be too far away from each other.
Chinese navy spokesman Gao Xiucheng said the warships were on a “routine training” mission. “It is in line with relevant international laws and practices, and without targeting any party,” Gao said yesterday.
This comes just weeks after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) held large-scale naval and air force exercises in the East China Sea, “in response to the recent frequent false signals released by the US on the Taiwan issue”.
Military exercises have been a usual way for the PLA to demonstrate power and resolve when tensions simmer over Taiwan.
US lawmakers’ recent visits to the self-ruled island have been slammed as “provocative” by Beijing, which earlier also lashed out at former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe’s support for Taipei.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also sparked fresh US calls to help defend Taiwan, with US ally Tokyo reiterating the importance of peace in the Taiwan Strait.
The Liaoning was first spotted by the Japanese in the East China Sea west of Nagasaki on Sunday, when it was leading five other vessels – the Type 055 guidedmissile destroyer Nanchang, Type 052D guided-missile destroyers Xining, Urumqi and Chengdu, and Type 901 supply ship Hulunhu.
The group was then joined by the Type 052C guided-missile destroyer Zhengzhou and Type 054A frigate Xiangtan in waters west of the disputed Diaoyu Islands on Monday. The flotilla then sailed through the Miyako Strait, the Japanese Ministry of Defence said.
This was the first Pacific training session of the Liaoning carrier strike group since last December, when it took five other warships through the strategically important strait. The Nanchang was part of that drill, as well as being on another exercise the previous April, suggesting it has become a permanent member of the group.
Macau-based military observer Antony Wong Dong said the Miyako Strait, an international waterway in the first island chain east of the Chinese coast, was the navy’s regular route to access the Pacific. “Therefore Japan also deployed anti-ship missiles in this area,” he noted.
The Liaoning, the PLA Navy’s first aircraft carrier, was launched in 2012 as a “training platform” for troops to operate such a vessel well as for other warships to work in a carrier strike group.
A second mainland carrier, the Shandong, entered active service in 2017, while a third is under construction and expected to be launched later this year.