US and ally shadow Chinese carrier group in Pacific

One of China’s aircraft carriers practiced breaking through a strategic Western Pacific choke point this week, but the United States and a security treaty ally were waiting on the other side.

As of approximately 7 a.m. local time on Tuesday, the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong was sailing in waters about 320 miles southeast of Japan’s Miyako Island, together with the Type 055 destroyer Yan’an, the Type 052D destroyer Guilin and the Type 054A frigate Yuncheng, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry’s Joint Staff Office.

The home-built Shandong is China’s second operational aircraft carrier of Soviet design. It has a displacement of about 70,000 tons and a ski-jump to launch aircraft. In comparison, the U.S. Navy’s 100,000-ton carriers are equipped with aircraft catapults for greater efficiency.

Miyako is part of the so-called first island chain, connecting U.S. allies and partners including Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. The Chinese navy has operated freely in waters east of the island chain in recent years, realizing its ambition of advancing into deeper “blue waters.”

The area between the first and second island chains also frequently hosts U.S. and allied naval exercises.

The Shandong conducted flight operations with its fighter jets and helicopters in the Philippine Sea, prompting the Japan Air Self-Defense Force to scramble its aircraft to monitor the movements, Japan’s Joint Staff reported alongside pictures of the Chinese warship launching and recovering J-15 carrier-based aircraft.

A photo released on X (formerly Twitter) by Japan‘s Joint Staff showed Japanese Murasame-class destroyer JS Akebono sailing close to the Shandong carrier task group. It also showed the Akebono‘s main gun pointed at the Chinese formation.

China‘s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a Newsweek email seeking comment about the Shandong‘s activities.

It was the fourth time the Japanese Defense Ministry had confirmed the Shandong‘s presence in the wider Pacific since April last year. The carrier and its escorts were last in the Philippine Sea from from late October to early November last year.

Separately on Wednesday, Taiwan‘s Defense Ministry said its armed forces detected 37 Chinese military aircraft around the self-ruled island. Some of the warplanes were conducted joint training with the Shandong and other Chinese naval vessels, Taipei said.

The Shandong‘s movements have been partially captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2A Earth observation satellite since late June, when the ship left its homeport on China’s southern island province of Hainan and began operating in the South China Sea.

Taiwan’s RW News website said on Sunday that the Shandong task group had briefly entered the Bashi Channel, a waterway between southern Taiwan and northern Philippines, the previous afternoon, before returning to the South China Sea later the same day—an unusually short maneuver.

According to aircraft-tracking data on the Flightradar24 website, a U.S Navy MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance drone circled above waters east of Taiwan on Saturday, in a suspected move to spy on the Shandong formation.

Over the weekend, China’s state-run broadcaster CCTV revealed a recent “close encounter” between one of the Shandong‘s escorts and an undisclosed foreign naval vessel.

The program interviewed a naval officer stationed on board the Yan’an, who said his ship intercepted and halted the approach of a foreign warship suspected of attempted intelligence-gathering activities.