Chinese Carrier Shandong Drills South of Taiwan After Slew of US-Led War Games

US and Canadian warships transited the Taiwan Strait on Saturday, part of an ongoing Western effort to flout China’s territorial claims to Taiwan and over the waterway separating it from the mainland.

Authorities on Taiwan said on Monday they had dispatched aircraft in response to detecting numerous Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy ships and aircraft off the island’s southern coast, including the aircraft carrier Shandong.

The autonomous island’s Ministry of Defense said "a naval formation led by the Shandong was spotted passing 60 nautical miles off the southeast tip of Eluanbi and sailing eastward towards the western Pacific for training," according to Taiwanese media. Cape Eluanbi is Taiwan’s southernmost tip. It is the closest either Chinese aircraft carrier has come to the island.

The ministry said it “sent warplanes and warships to shadow the PLA movements and deployed missile systems as appropriate responses.”

They said they detected a total of 26 PLA aircraft, including the Shandong’s J-16 fighters as well as Su-30 fighters and KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft, both of which were launched from shore facilities.

Some of the aircraft were reported to have crossed the median line, which serves as a de facto dividing line and some were said to have ventured into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). Neither concept has legal bearing, and Taiwan’s self-imposed ADIZ extends well into Chinese airspace; nonetheless, Chinese military forces crossing either of them is reported in Western press as aggressive acts against Taiwan.

The PLA exercises came after a trio of events in recent days, which Beijing has perceived as aimed at emboldening political factions in Taiwan that support independence and oppose reconciliation with the mainland.

On August 31, the Super Garuda Shield drills began in Indonesia, involving military forces from seven nations that included the United States and Australia. In addition, US and Canadian warships joined the Japanese aircraft carrier JS Izumo for the Noble Stingray exercises in the East China Sea.

Afterwards, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and Halifax-class frigate HMCS Ottawa, two ships involved in the Noble Stingray drills, sailed through the Taiwan Strait in what US Indo-Pacific Command called a transit “through a corridor in the strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state” - a direct challenge to China’s claims that the strait is an internal waterway. The PLAN Type 052D destroyer Hohhot trailed the two ships through the strait by about half a mile, warning them about their violation of Chinese waters.

Those, in turn, followed multi-nation war games in the South China Sea and in South Korea last month.

Since shifting its primary strategic focus toward “great power competition” with Russia and China, the US has pushed to unite East Asian nations into anti-China blocs, claiming Beijing poses a threat to their sovereignty that only the US military can oppose. That has included funneling new weapons to the government in Taiwan, which Washington officially doesn’t recognize as a country but which nonetheless enjoys de facto US support.

Answering a question last week about speculation about responses by other countries to a "potential war in Taiwan," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters that "Taiwan is part of China" and issues regarding Taiwan are "China’s internal affair" in which no other nation has a right to interfere.

"By hyping up the Taiwan question on various occasions, the US has been creating tensions, provoking confrontation, and seeking to turn the Taiwan question into an international issue," Mao said. “This is highly dangerous. The most effective way to safeguard peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is to adhere to the one-China principle and unequivocally oppose 'Taiwan independence.'"

The government on Taiwan is the last surviving remnant of the Republic of China, which governed all of China from the abdication of the last Chinese emperor in 1912 until the communist victory in 1949, which led to the foundation of the People's Republic of China on the mainland.

Both governments claim to be the legitimate Chinese government, but only a handful of small US-aligned states recognize Taiwan's claims today. The US switched its recognition to Beijing in 1979 and acknowledged Beijing's position under "One-China policy", which stipulates that the PRC is the only legitimate government of China.