China’s Liaoning Carrier Group Drills in the Philippine Sea Ahead of Keen Sword

China’s aircraft carrier Liaoning has pushed into the Philippine Sea with three escorts, launching fighters and helicopters just south of Japan’s southern islands, according to Japan’s Joint Staff Office. The deployment, the group’s second this year, comes days before the United States and Japan open their large Keen Sword exercise.

A three-day run past Japan

The Liaoning was sailing with the cruisers Anshan and Wuxi and the destroyer Huainan. On October 13 Japanese forces tracked the group heading south through the East China Sea, about 242 miles southwest of the Danjo Islands.

A day later it passed between Okinawa and Miyako Island into the Philippine Sea. Roughly 155 miles south of Ishigaki Island, the carrier carried out about ten takeoffs and landings by fighter jets and helicopters, prompting Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force to scramble fighters. By October 15 the group was entering the Luzon Strait toward the South China Sea.

The Japanese destroyer JS Yugiri shadowed the ships, while P-1 and P-3C maritime patrol aircraft kept watch overhead.

“Routine,” says Beijing

The PLA Navy said the deployment was part of its annual training plan and was “not directed against any specific country or target.” It did not say how long the carrier would stay at sea or where it would operate next. The Liaoning last spent 40 days at sea between May and June, returning to its home port of Qingdao on June 22.

Timing that is hard to ignore

The cruise lands just before Keen Sword 27, a U.S.-Japan exercise expected to involve the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group. U.S. Marines plan to deploy NMESIS anti-ship missile launchers and TPS-80 radars to Ishigaki and Yonaguni, while Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force brings Type 12 and Type 88 anti-ship missile systems for non-live-fire training.

It also comes amid a wider burst of Chinese military activity. Beijing has been running live-fire drills in five zones along its own coast, none of them around Taiwan, set to wrap up on Saturday. China’s Defense Ministry spokesperson, Senior Colonel Chen Xi, sharply criticized Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s October 11 National Day speech, though Beijing has not announced any drills around the island in response.

For Tokyo, carrier flight operations this close to the Sakishima Islands are no longer unusual, but they remain a clear signal of how far, and how often, China’s navy now operates beyond the first island chain.

Featured image: Japan Ministry of Defense, Joint Staff Office / CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons