Chinese J-15 fighter jets waiting on the deck of the Liaoning aircraft carrier during military drills in the Bohai Sea, off China’s north-east coast AFP/-
TAIPEI: Taiwan warned on Tuesday that “the threat of our enemies is growing day by day”, as Chinese warships led by the country’s sole aircraft carrier sailed towards the island province of Hainan through the South China Sea on a routine drill.
The drill comes amid renewed tension over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s telephone call with the island’s president that upset Beijing.
Beijing’s only aircraft carrier cruises past Taiwan’s Pratas Islands in an exercise state media said showed the country’s improving combat capabilities
China’s aircraft carrier Liaoning has navigated a passage through the South China Sea amid tensions with Taiwan. Photograph: Li Tang/AP
Reuters
Monday 26 December 2016 20.03 EST
A group of Chinese warships led by the country’s sole aircraft carrier entered the South China Sea on Monday after passing south of Taiwan, the self-ruled island’s defence ministry said.
The ministry said the carrier, accompanied by five vessels, passed south-east of the Pratas Islands, which are controlled by Taiwan, heading south-west. The carrier group earlier passed 90 nautical miles (167km) south of Taiwan’s southernmost point via the Bashi channel, between Taiwan and the Philippines.
China live-fires aircraft carrier group amid Taiwan tensions with US
Read more
Ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi declining to say whether fighter jets were scrambled or if submarines had been deployed but added: “Staying vigilant and flexible has always been the normal method of maintaining airspace security.”
Chen said the ministry was continuing to “monitor and grasp the situation”.
The move, which China called a routine exercise, comes amid renewed tension over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, following US President-elect Donald Trump’s telephone call with the island’s president.
China’s Soviet-built Liaoning aircraft carrier has taken part in previous exercises, including some in the South China Sea, but China is years away from perfecting carrier operations similar to those the United States has practised for decades.
Johnny Chiang , a senior Taiwan opposition Nationalist lawmaker, said the Liaoning exercise was China’s signal to the US that it had broken through the “first island chain”, an area that includes Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan.
The US state department on Monday said its position had not changed since July, when it said it was continuing to monitor China’s military modernisation and that it expected nations conducting defence exercises to comply with the law. Representatives for the Pentagon declined to comment.
Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Trump, said the incoming team had no comment on China’s move. Trump takes office on 20 January and has already made headlines over a series of statements on China and Taiwan.
In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said people should not read too much into what the carrier was up to, because its movements were within the law.
“Our Liaoning should enjoy in accordance with the law freedom of navigation and overflight as set by international law, and we hope all sides can respect this right of China’s,” she told a daily news briefing.
Influential state-run Chinese tabloid the Global Times said the exercise showed how the carrier was improving its combat capabilities and that it should now sail even further afield. “The Chinese fleet will cruise to the eastern Pacific sooner or later. When China’s aircraft carrier fleet appears in offshore areas of the US one day, it will trigger intense thinking about maritime rules,” the newspaper’s editorial said.
China has been angered recently by US naval patrols near islands that China claims in the South China Sea. This month, a Chinese navy ship seized a US underwater drone in the South China Sea. China later returned it.
Japan said late on Sunday it had spotted six Chinese naval vessels including the Liaoning travelling through the passage between Miyako and Okinawa and into the Pacific. A Japanese government spokesman said on Monday the voyage showed China’s expanding military capability and Japan was closely monitoring it.
China’s air force conducted long-range drills this month above the East and South China Seas that rattled Japan and Taiwan. China said those exercises were also routine.
In December last year, the defence ministry confirmed China was building a second aircraft carrier but its launch date is unclear. The aircraft carrier programme is a state secret.
Beijing could build multiple aircraft carriers over the next 15 years, the Pentagon said in a report last year.
China claims most of the South China Sea through which about $5tn in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.
TT – Nó nằm đó thù lù “một cục” trên bờ kè sát con đường Water Front cảng Subic, chiếc tàu ngầm hạt nhân USS Louisville của hạm đội 7 Mỹ, sáng nay thứ tư 27-6. Thật yên ả thả neo trên bến cảng ngày nào là căn cứ hải – không quân Mỹ.
A group of disputed islands, Uotsuri island (top), Minamikojima (bottom) and Kitakojima, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China is seen in the East China Sea, in this photo taken by Kyodo September 2012. Mandatory credit. REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo
TTCT – Việc thất thủ Hoàng Sa là hậu quả của những đổi chác giữa Mỹ và Trung Quốc, mà chủ súy chính là cố vấn Henry Kissinger.
Chính sách của Mỹ trước trào Nixon, tức trước Kissinger, hoàn toàn khác. Còn từ “trào Kissinger” trở đi là trái nghịch hoàn toàn, thậm chí cả các đồng minh Đài Loan và Nhật Bản cũng “nếm mùi” ông này.
The drone was launched by the Bowditch, an American ship, last week. Since the Pentagon demanded the return of the device, officials from the United States and China have verbally sparred over the legality of the seizure.Credit U.S. Navy Visual News Service, via Associated Press
BEIJING — The Chinese Navy on Tuesday handed back an American underwater drone it had seized, returning the device to the United States after days of contention that drew the ire of President-elect Donald J. Trump.
A Chinese vessel returned the submersible drone to a United States Navy ship in international waters off the Philippines, near where it was taken on Thursday, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, Peter Cook, said on the Pentagon’s website.
Since the Pentagon disclosed the episode on Friday and demanded the return of the ocean-monitoring device, American and Chinese officials have engaged in verbal sniping over the legality of the seizure, which took place roughly 500 miles from the coast of mainland China. In the latest announcement, Mr. Cook pressed home the official American position.
BEIJING — Only a day before a small Chinese boat sidled up to a United States Navy research vessel in waters off the Philippines and audaciously seized an underwater drone from American sailors, the commander of United States military operations in the region told an audience in Australia that America had a winning military formula.
“Capability times resolve times signaling equals deterrence,” Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr. told a blue-chip crowd of diplomats and analysts at the prestigious Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, the leading city in America’s closest ally in the region.
Philippines president Duterte says: ‘I will not impose anything on China’ despite fresh report showing militarisation of disputed reefs
A satellite image of what appears to be anti-aircraft guns and other systems on the artificial island Hughes Reef in the South China Sea. Photograph: DigitalGlobe/Reuters
Beijing unhappy with the US “hyping up” the situation after the underwater drone was seized from South China Sea.
The USNS Bowditch, a T-AGS 60 class oceanographic survey ship, sails in open water in this undated photo [US Navy via AP]
China’s Defence Ministry said it had been in talks with the United States about returning an underwater drone taken by a Chinese naval vessel in the South China Sea, but the US was not helping by “hyping up” the issue. Tiếp tục đọc “China agrees to return seized US underwater drone”→
US officials demand return of the drone they say was testing salinity and temperature in international waters.
The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam have competing claims in the South China Sea [AFP]
A Chinese Navy warship has seized an underwater drone deployed by an American oceanographic vessel in international waters in the South China Sea, triggering a formal diplomatic protest from the US and a demand for its return, a US defence official said. Tiếp tục đọc “China seizes US naval drone in South China Sea”→
ANTG – Các chuyên gia phân tích quốc tế đánh giá việc Trung Quốc để ngư dân Philippines trở lại ngư trường Scarborough chỉ là một biến tướng mới của chiêu bài biến khu vực không có tranh chấp thành khu vực tranh chấp rồi tiến tới “gác tranh chấp để cùng khai thác lợi ích chung” mà nước này vẫn sử dụng trên Biển Đông.
Tàu Trung Quốc di chuyển gần tàu đánh bắt cá của ngư dân Philippines ở bãi cạn Scarborough.
Satellite images released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington this week showed “large antiaircraft guns and probable close-in weapons systems” on its outposts in the Spratlys.
Vào sáng 8-12, Hải quân Trung Quốc đã rầm rộ tổ chức cái gọi là “lễ kỉ niệm 70 năm ngày Trung Quốc thu phục” quần đảo Hoàng Sa và Trường Sa của Việt Nam. Tư lệnh Hải quân Trung Quốc, Đô đốc Ngô Thắng Lợi đã tham dự hoạt động phi lý này và truyền đi thông điệp hiếu chiến “yêu cầu quân đội Trung Quốc tập trung sẵn sàng cho chiến trận”.
Trung Quốc đã triển khai tên lửa chống hạm YJ-62, chiến đấu cơ J-11B ra đảo Phú Lâm ở quần đảo Hoàng Sa của Việt Nam, quân sự hóa Biển Đông nhưng lại đổ lỗi cho Mỹ và nước khác “leo thang căng thẳng”.
China appears to have built significant point-defense capabilities, in the form of large anti-aircraft guns and probable close-in weapons systems (CIWS), at each of its outposts in the Spratly Islands. AMTI began tracking the construction of identical, hexagon-shaped structures at Fiery Cross, Mischief, and Subi Reefs in June and July. It now seems that these structures are an evolution of point-defense fortifications already constructed at China’s smaller facilities on Gaven, Hughes, Johnson, and Cuarteron Reefs.
Sand can be seen spilling from a newly dredged channel in this view of Vietnamese-held Ladd Reef, in the Spratly Island group in the South China Sea, Nov. 30in this Planet Labs handout photo received by Reuters on Tuesday. | TREVOR HAMMOND / PLANET LABS / HANDOUT VIA REUTERS
HANOI – Vietnam has begun dredging work on a disputed reef in the South China Sea, Reuters news service reported Thursday, a move that will likely anger China, which claims virtually the entire sea.
The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam have competing claims in the South China Sea [AFP]
CVD 