A US Navy aircraft carrier and five escort ships have arrived in the South China Sea amid rising tensions over China’s militarization of disputed islands, Washington officials confirmed on Friday.
The Navy Times described the deployment as “a small armada.”
Officials approached by the Taipei Times played down the situation and passed it off as routine, but Fox News said that “multiple defense officials” told it the move was “a show of force” and a signal to China.
A US Pacific Fleet spokesman said the nuclear-powered carrier USS John C. Stennis and its air wing, along with two destroyers — USS Chung-Hoon and USS Stockdale — and two cruisers — USS Antietam and USS Mobile Bay — were in the region.
The Navy Times said that the command ship USS Blue Ridge, the floating headquarters of the Japan-based US Seventh Fleet, was also in the area.
According to Center for a New American Security analyst Jerry Hendrix, the Pentagon is demonstrating its full commitment to presence and freedom of navigation in the region.
“With the full carrier strike group and the command ship, the navy is showing the scope of its interests and ability to project presence and power around the world,” he told the Navy Times.
A report issued last month by the think tank said the days of the US Navy’s “unchallenged primacy” around the world might be coming to an end.
It said that accelerated investment in anti-access and area denial weapons by China, Russia and Iran were placing greater constraints on US carrier operations.
The report said that Chinese surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles and tactical unmanned aerial vehicles “capable of reaching Taiwan” were significant threats to the carrier group and its air wing.
Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the US Pacific Command, last month said that China was deploying fighter jets, missiles and radar systems across the South China Sea and “changing the operational landscape” of the region.
As reported by the Taipei Times, Harris said: “Chinese leaders seem to believe that, through coercion, intimidation and force, they can bypass accepted methods of dispute resolution.”
The admiral’s remarks led US Senate Committee on Armed Services chairman John McCain to call on US President Barack Obama to increase freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea.
Deployment of the Stennis and its support group would appear to be — at least in part — a response to the concerns raised by Harris and McCain.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter warned in a speech that “China must not pursue militarization in the South China Sea.”
“Specific actions will have specific consequences,” Carter said.
The navy has completed two freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea — sailing within 12 nautical miles (22.2km) of artificial islands claimed by China — since October last year.
While China claims sovereignty over most of the islands, reefs and atolls that make up the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) and the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), Washington says that ownership is disputed and the surrounding seas are international waterways.
Pentagon sources refused to say whether ships in the Stennis group would conduct freedom of navigation patrols around the islands, which are also claimed by Taiwan.
However, a retired senior navy official told the Taipei Times that he would be “very surprised” if this did not happen.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS