The largest Chinese aircraft carrier group reportedly ever assembled is conducting combat training near a U.S. naval base in Japan, according to multiple Chinese media sources on Tuesday.
China’s aircraft carrier “Liaoning,” as well as seven other vessels, are reportedly performing a naval expedition in close proximity to Nagasaki, Japan, and the U.S. Navy base at Sasebo, according to a Tuesday report from China’s Observer News translated by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier is also in the vicinity, according to the report.
The U.S. Naval Institute fleet tracker placed both the USS Abraham Lincoln, as well as the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier in the waters near Sasebo on May 2.
China’s naval expedition comes a week after its military reportedly shadowed a U.S. Navy destroyer conducting a freedom of navigation exercise in the Taiwan Strait last Tuesday.
China’s military news outlet confirmed its nation’s aircraft carrier group was operating in the western Pacific Ocean in a Tuesday bulletin translated by the DCNF, but stated the “routine training operation” was “not directed against any party.”
via joemiller
