TOKYO: Japan this week confirmed that two Chinese aircraft carriers have operated together for the first time in the Pacific, fueling Tokyo’s concern about Beijing’s rapidly expanding military activity far beyond its borders.
Carriers are considered critical to projecting power at a distance. China routinely sends coast guard vessels, warships and warplanes to areas around the disputed East China Sea islands, but now it is going as far as what’s called the second-island chain that includes Guam — a US territory. A single Chinese carrier has ventured into the Pacific in the past, but never east of that chain until now.
Here’s what to know about the latest moves by China, which has the world’s largest navy numerically.
What happened?
Japan’s Defense Ministry said the two carriers, the Liaoning and the Shandong, were seen separately but almost simultaneously operating near southern islands in the Pacific for the first time. Both operated in waters off Iwo Jima, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) south of Tokyo, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Monday.
The Liaoning also sailed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone of Minamitorishima, the country’s easternmost island. There was no violation of Japanese territorial waters. Still, Nakatani said Japan has expressed “concern” to the Chinese embassy.
Both carriers had warplanes take off and land. Late Wednesday, Japan’s Defense Ministry said a Chinese J-15 fighter jet that took off from the Shandong on Saturday chased a Japanese P-3C aircraft on reconnaissance duty in the area and came within an “abnormally close distance” of 45 meters (50 yards).
The Chinese jet on Sunday crossed 900 meters (980 yards) in front of the Japanese P-3C, the ministry said, adding it has strongly requested China to take measures to prevent such an “abnormal approach” that could cause accidental collisions.
Why is Japan worried?
China’s military buildup and expanding area of activity have raised tensions in the region.
The Chinese carriers sailed past the first-island chain, the Pacific archipelago off the Asian mainland that includes Japan, Taiwan and part of the Philippines. The Liaoning reached farther to the second-island chain, a strategic line extending to Guam, showing China also can challenge Japan’s ally, the United States.
“China apparently aims to elevate its capability of the two aircraft carriers, and to advance its operational capability of the distant sea and airspace,” Nakatani said.
The defense minister vowed to further strengthen Japan’s air defense on remote islands.
Japan has been accelerating its military buildup especially since 2022, including counter-strike capability, with long-range cruise missiles as deterrence to China.
What does China want?
China’s navy on Tuesday confirmed the deployments, calling it part of routine training in the western Pacific “to test their capabilities in far seas protection and joint operations.” It said the deployment was in compliance with international laws and not targeted at any country.
China is pursuing a vast military modernization program including ambitions of a true “blue-water” naval force capable of operating at long ranges for extended periods.
Beijing has the world’s largest navy numerically but lags far behind the United States in its number of aircraft carriers. China has three, the US 11.
Washington’s numerical advantage allows it to keep a carrier, currently the USS George Washington, permanently forward-deployed to Japan.
The Pentagon has expressed concern over Beijing’s focus on building new carriers. Its latest report to Congress on Chinese defense developments noted that it “extends air defense coverage of deployed task groups beyond the range of land-based defenses, enabling operations farther from China’s shore.”
What are the carriers’ abilities?
The two Chinese carriers currently in the western Pacific employ the older “ski-jump” launch method for aircraft, with a ramp at the end of a short runway to assist planes taking off. China’s first carrier, the Liaoning, was a repurposed Soviet ship. The second, the Shandong, was built in China along the Soviet design.
Its third carrier, the Fujian, launched in 2022 and is undergoing final sea trials. It is expected to be operational later this year. It is locally designed and built and employs a more modern, electromagnetic-type launch system like those developed and used by the US
All three ships are conventionally powered, while all the US carriers are nuclear powered, giving them the ability to operate at much greater range and more power to run advanced systems.
Satellite imagery provided to The Associated Press last year indicated China is working on a nuclear propulsion system for its carriers.
Any other recent concerns?
In August, a Chinese reconnaissance aircraft violated Japan’s airspace off the southern prefecture of Nagasaki, and a Chinese survey ship violated Japanese territorial waters off another southern prefecture, Kagoshima. In September, the Liaoning and two destroyers sailed between Japan’s westernmost island of Yonaguni — just east of Taiwan — and nearby Iriomote, entering an area just outside Japan’s territorial waters where the country has some control over maritime traffic.
China routinely sends coast guard vessels and aircraft into waters and airspace surrounding the Japanese-controlled, disputed East China Sea islands to harass Japanese vessels in the area, forcing Japan to scramble jets.
Tokyo also worries about China’s increased joint military activities with Russia, including joint operations of warplanes or warships around northern and southwestern Japan in recent years.
2 Chinese aircraft carriers are operating in the Pacific for the first time. Why?
https://arab.news/gdec4
2 Chinese aircraft carriers are operating in the Pacific for the first time. Why?
- Two Chinese aircraft carriers operating together for the first time in the Pacific fuel concern about Beijing’s rapidly expanding military activity far beyond its borders
- China routinely sends coast guard vessels, warships and warplanes to areas around the disputed East China Sea islands, but never east of the second-island chain until now
Federal judge rules Kilmar Abrego Garcia can’t be re-detained by immigration authorities
- Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia because a 90-day detention period has expired and the government has no viable plan for deporting him, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
The Salvadoran national’s case has become a focal point in the immigration debate after he was mistakenly deported to his home country last year. Since his return, he has been fighting a second deportation to a series of African countries proposed by Department of Homeland Security officials.
The government “made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, in Maryland, wrote in her Tuesday order. “From this, the Court easily concludes that there is no ‘good reason to believe’ removal is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future.”
Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge ruled that he could not be deported to El Salvador because he faced danger there from a gang that had threatened his family. By mistake, he was deported there anyway last year.
Facing public pressure and a court order, President Donald Trump’s administration brought him back in June, but only after securing an indictment charging him with human smuggling in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty. Meanwhile, Trump officials have said he cannot stay in the U.S. In court filings, officials have said they intended to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and Liberia.
In her Tuesday order, Xinis noted the government has “purposely — and for no reason — ignored the one country that has consistently offered to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee, and to which he agrees to go.” That country is Costa Rica.
Abrego Garcia's attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, argued in court that immigration detention is not supposed to be a punishment. Immigrants can only be detained as a way to facilitate their deportation and cannot be held indefinitely with no viable deportation plan.
“Since Judge Xinis ordered Mr. Abrego Garcia released in mid-December, the government has tried one trick after another to try to get him re-detained,” Sandoval-Moshenberg wrote in an email on Tuesday. “In her decision today, she recognized that if the government were truly trying to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the United States, they would have sent him to Costa Rica long before today.”
The government should now engage in a good-faith effort to work out the details of removal to Costa Rica, Sandoval-Moshenberg wrote.
