BEIING: China said on Friday that its third and newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, recently sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait to carry out \u201cscientific research trials and training missions\u201d in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n
Beijing has ploughed billions of dollars into modernizing its military in recent years, a trend that has unnerved some governments in East Asia despite China insisting its aims are peaceful.<\/p>\n
China has two carriers in operation \u2013 the Liaoning and Shandong \u2013 with the Fujian currently undergoing sea trials.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s navy said on Friday that undertaking cross-regional trials \u201cis a normal part of the aircraft carrier\u2019s construction process\u201d.<\/p>\n
It is \u201cnot directed at any specific target\u201d, a spokesman for the Chinese navy, Leng Guowei, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
However, its transit through the sensitive Taiwan Strait was intended to signal \u201cChina\u2019s rise as a strong military power, and beyond that, a maritime great power\u201d, said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s to flex China\u2019s newfound military strength and send a veritable signal to potential adversaries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Taiwan\u2019s Ministry of National Defense said Friday it had used \u201cjoint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance means to fully grasp the situation and responded accordingly\u201d.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s defense ministry said that on Thursday afternoon it had identified three Chinese naval ships advancing southwest in waters approximately 200 kilometers (124 miles) northwest of one of the disputed Senkaku Islands, known in Chinese as the Diaoyu Islands.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmong these, the Fujian aircraft carrier was confirmed by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force for the first time,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Japan said in July that China\u2019s intensifying military activities could \u201cseriously impact\u201d its security, citing the first confirmed incursion by a Chinese military aircraft into its airspace last August in an annual threat assessment.<\/p>\n
China said that a coastguard fleet had \u201cpatrolled within the territorial waters of the Diaoyu Islands\u201d on Friday.<\/p>\n
Last year, Chinese vessels sailed near the Japanese-administered islands a record 355 times, according to Tokyo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIING: China said on Friday that its third and newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, recently sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait to carry out \u201cscientific research trials and training missions\u201d in the South China Sea. Beijing has ploughed billions of dollars into modernizing its military in recent years, a trend that has unnerved some governments …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":86692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86693,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86676\/revisions\/86693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}