Japan to Keep Close Watch in the Pacific Over China’s Lone Aircraft Carrier

Japan will closely monitor China's aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, which was spotted earlier in the Pacific, the Japanese government’s top spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The aircraft carrier Liaoning was spotted Sunday passing between Japan’s islands of Okinawa and Mijako in the East China Sea. It is part of a Chinese naval force heading to the western Pacific Ocean.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga told reporters the presence of a Chinese aircraft carrier in the area demonstrated Beijing’s advanced naval capabilities, the public broadcaster NHK reported. He added the government was closely monitoring it.

The NHK cited Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force officials as saying this was the first time in their knowledge that a Chinese aircraft carrier was carrying out an exercise for global deployment in the Pacific.

China's sole operational aircraft carrier is a refurbished Soviet-built model; construction began in Ukraine in the 1980's before it was sold to China in 1998 and commissioned in 2012. 

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