China deploys aircraft carrier near Taiwan Kyodo News

China said Monday it has deployed its aircraft carrier Shandong for a military exercise launched over the weekend near Taiwan in response to a meeting between the island's leader Tsai Ing-wen and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy. As part of the three-day drill that ended the same day, the Chinese military carried out a number of simulated strikes against key targets in Taiwan and its surrounding waters in air and sea exercises around the island. The Shandong aircraft carrier group hosted J-15 fighter sorties, according to Chinese state-run media. The rise of cross-strait tension following the talks between the Taiwan president and the third-highest-ranking U.S. official on Wednesday in California has caused concern in the region, with Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno saying Monday that Tokyo will "monitor the situation with great attention." Last August, China conducted large-scale military exercises in areas encircling Taiwan following a trip there by McCarthy's predecessor Nancy Pelosi, who became the first U.S. House speaker in 25 years to visit the island. Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province to be brought into its fold by force if necessary. The Shandong, commissioned in 2019, is China's second aircraft carrier. Beijing apparently intends to deploy an aircraft carrier for maritime blockade operations during contingencies to ward off U.S. military intervention. Taiwan's Defense Ministry said Monday that a total of 59 Chinese military aircraft and 11 vessels were detected around Taiwan on Monday morning, with 39 planes crossing the median line of the strait -- a boundary that both sides had respected for decades -- and entering the territory's air defense identification zone. The ministry also noted flight training was conducted on the Shandong carrier in the Western Pacific and that it has been closely monitoring the situation to respond to these activities. The Japanese Defense Ministry separately said it has confirmed about 120 aircraft takeoffs and landings on the Shandong carrier over three days through Sunday. Senior Col. Zhao Xiaozhuo, a high-ranking researcher at the People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences, has said the drill was based on actual combat scenarios and aimed at checking the troops' capability to engage in joint combat operations. He said the exercise has "shown our determination and power to seize and maintain superiority in the air, on the sea and in the information domain," adding the Chinese military is certain about "our overwhelming advantages over the 'Taiwan independence' forces." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a press conference Monday that the greatest threat to cross-strait peace and stability is the "Taiwan independence" separatist forces and external forces' connivance and support for them, referring to the Tsai-McCarthy meeting. "We hope the international community can see clearly the essence about the Taiwan question, stay committed to the one-China principle and firmly oppose all forms of Taiwan independence separatist activities," he said. Communist-led China and Taiwan have been governed separately since they split in 1949 due to a civil war. ==Kyodo

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