The Guardian

Beijing’s only aircraft carrier cruises past Taiwan’s Pratas Islands in an exercise state media said showed the country’s improving combat capabilities

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.
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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.