Taiwan Watches China Aircraft Carrier Maneuvers Offshore

Defense officials in Taiwan said they were monitoring the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong a day after it embarked on its first-ever maneuvers in the Western Pacific.

Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said outside the island's parliament on Thursday that the Shandong and its escorts were operating 200 nautical miles east of the southern tip of Taiwan. Taipei expects the carrier to launch and recover aircraft from its flight deck as part of China's springtime exercise.

China's first domestically built carrier—its third overall—left the South China Sea via the Bashi Channel, the narrow waters separating Taiwan from the Philippines, in the hours before a historic meeting on April 5 between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan.

Although China's ruling Communist Party has never governed Taiwan, Beijing considers the island Chinese territory. It had promised to retaliate if Wednesday's talks in California went ahead, but Taiwanese officials expected the response to be relatively restrained compared to last August's show of force following a visit to Taipei by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Taiwan's military would "continue to assess" the intentions of the Shandong's 21st deployment, said Chiu. China's People's Liberation Army Navy also operates the carriers Liaoning and the recently launched Fujian.

The carrier's movements were watched by the Joint Staff of Japan's Self-Defense Force, which said the Chinese warship was accompanied by the Type 054A frigate Liuzhou and the Chaganhu, a Type 901 fast combat support ship.

At a hearing of the Taiwanese legislature's Foreign and National Defense Committee, Chiu told lawmakers Taiwan's Kang Ding- and Cheng Kung-class frigates monitored the carrier group's transit from a distance of 5-6 nautical miles.

According to Taiwan's defense chief, the U.S. Navy supercarrier USS Nimitz, the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 11, was on maneuvers about 400 nautical miles east of Taiwan.

"We can't say [the Nimitz] has come for [the Shandong], but its position, its posture, is related," Chiu said.

Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon's deputy press secretary, said at a media briefing on Wednesday: "These naval operations are happening in international waters. It's something that we do on routine and do exercises within international waters."

As of late on Thursday local time, China was yet to indicate it was preparing a significant military response to the McCarthy-Tsai meeting. Since Pelosi's visit to the island last summer, the PLA has operated an average of five warships and up to 20 warplanes near Taiwan every day, "as long as weather permits," Chiu said.

In a somewhat less escalatory response, Chinese maritime authorities said this week they would patrol sea lines in the Taiwan Strait and conduct "on-site inspections" of merchant ships operating between Taiwanese and Chinese cities. Taiwan has asked vessels sailing under its flag to refuse attempts at boarding and inspection.

Henry Ko, Taipei's No. 2 intelligence official, told lawmakers that an ongoing visit to China by President Emmanuel Macron of France and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen may be among the reasons why Beijing hasn't reacted strongly.

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