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By John Feng
China Editor
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China sailed an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait early on Thursday, one week after a pair of American and Canadian warships did the same, in a tit-for-tat show of force along the strategic waterway.
The Shandong, the second of three carriers operated by the People's Liberation Army Navy, steamed northward through the middle of the strait and prompted Taipei to scramble "appropriate forces" to monitor its movements, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said.
Just 80 miles wide at its narrowest point, the strait has long acted as a natural divide between opposing leaders in Beijing and Taipei. But their forces are meeting more frequently in nearby skies and seas as China's military expands westward into the Pacific.
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Western officials have repeatedly warned that an armed conflict across the strait, through which an estimated 50 percent of the world's commercial container traffic travels each day, would have devastating consequences for the global economy, surpassing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war that followed.
Taiwan, whose government and public have jointly rejected China's long-running territorial claims to the island, said the Shandong sailed into the Western Pacific via the southern Bashi Channel on October 26. It was the carrier's third training deployment to the waters east of Taiwan in its service history.
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The Chinese "flat top" warship launched and recovered 570 aircraft—420 fighter jets and 150 helicopters—during its Pacific exercise from October 28 to November 5, which concluded with its return to the South China Sea on Monday, according to a report by the Joint Staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.
Tokyo said the Shandong was escorted by a flotilla of between five and nine other PLA Navy vessels, including missile destroyers, during its training south of Japan's Miyako Island. Japanese forces were deployed to monitor their movements, the report said.
Duan Dang, a Vietnam-based maritime security researcher, said on X, formerly Twitter, that the Shandong appeared to partially encircle one of Taiwan's outlying islands following its return from the Pacific exercise, which followed a similar pattern to its first-ever deployment to the waters this past April.
"This marks the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier has crossed the Taiwan Strait after an exercise in the Western Pacific," Dang said.
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While in the Pacific, the Shandong was likely under constant surveillance by the U.S., whose own aircraft carriers were operating in the vicinity over the weekend.
The Nimitz-class supercarriers USS Ronald Reagan and USS Carl Vinson conducted joint exercises at sea with Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force helicopter destroyer JS Hyuga on Tuesday, according to images released by the U.S. Navy.
"The ships and aircraft of the two naval forces, with more than 10,000 sailors, conducted coordinated surface and air operations in a complex maritime environment to demonstrate the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Joint Force's ability to deliver a powerful maritime force," said a joint statement by both carrier strike groups.
The Taiwanese and Chinese defense ministries didn't return Newsweek's request for comment before publication.
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