The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning sails near Okinawa in May 2022, with a Z-9 helicopter flying overhead. The Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier, recently concluded exercises with a carrier strike group in the Philippine Sea. (Japan Ministry of Defense)

The US Navy’s Aircraft Carriers Are Gone from the Western Pacific. Guess Whose Aren’t?

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At the same time the USS George Washington, America’s Indo-Pacific carrier, is rooted in the Middle East, China dispatched a carrier strike group of its own for naval exercises.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) Liaoning Carrier Strike Group moved to the South China Sea on Thursday, after it completed drills in the Philippine Sea. The movements of the Chinese flotilla—which consists of the Liaoning, the PLAN’s first aircraft carrier, alongside the cruisers CNS Anshan (103) and CNS Wuxi (104) and the destroyer CNS Huainen (123)—were closely monitored by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), although the Chinese Ministry of Defense stated its exercises were legal to conduct in international waters.

The Chinese carrier and its escorts departed from the PLAN naval base at Qingdao earlier this week. Then they........

© The National Interest