US aircraft carriers lead multi-deck military exercises with Japan in show of force east of Taiwan

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) — A dozen American and Japanese warships, including two American aircraft carriers, were conducting a military show of force in the Philippine Sea east of Taiwan this week.

Analysts say the joint drills show the US Navy can respond to contingencies in a wide swath of Asian waters where tensions with China remain high, even as it faces hostilities in the Middle East.

The US Navy aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Theodore Roosevelt were joined by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force helicopter destroyer JS Ise, seven US guided missile destroyers and two US cruisers. For what the Navy calls a Multiple Deck Event (MLDE), the US .

“The United States and Japan are uniquely capable of rapidly mobilizing multiple large-deck naval forces in support of mutual security interests in the Indo-Pacific,” the Navy said in a statement.

An F/A-18E Super Hornet takes off from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson during an exercise Jan. 31 in the Philippine Sea. (Credit: US Navy)

According to a US Navy statement, the dozen warships conducted “defense exercises, maritime surveillance, cross-deck exercises and strategic maneuvers to advance a unique, high-level warfighting capability.”

The exercise began on Monday and was scheduled to end on Thursday, according to a statement from the Japanese military.

S. in Singapore. Colin Koh, a researcher at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said that while exercises are regularly held in the area, the timing of this show of force is important.

“Earlier there was concern that flare-ups in the Middle East would shift US strategic focus away from the western Pacific,” Koh said.

“Despite what was happening in the Middle East, it was seen as a demonstration of the United States’ commitment to its strategic focus in the region,” he said, adding that the USS Ronald Reagan, the third US aircraft carrier in the Asia-Pacific. , was now in Japan.

Meanwhile, according to the USNI fleet tracker, only one US aircraft carrier — the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower — is in the Middle East, where Houthi rebels have endured a series of attacks on US naval assets and commercial vessels in the Red Sea. US and British attacks on the group’s bases inside Yemen.

Hawaii-based analyst Carl Schuster, US. A former director of operations at the Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said the joint exercise in the Philippine Sea shows the US Navy can quickly deploy forces to areas where Chinese naval units are active. recent months.

“As an exercise, it demonstrates the dynamics of an aircraft carrier. Geopolitically, it also highlights an airline’s ability to deal with a wide variety of contingencies over a wide area,” Schuster said.

Possible sources of marine stress

That vast area extends to islands and reefs in the South China Sea, where Chinese and Filipino ships have been in recent clashes. It also extends to the west to the democratically-ruled island of Taiwan, which has seen increased Chinese naval and air activity in the surrounding waters since its January election.

And it extends northwest to the East China Sea and the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, called the Dioceses by China, which Beijing claims as its sovereign territory and where it has maintained a near-constant coast guard presence for the past year, according to Japan. .

All of these areas are potential military flashpoints between China and the United States and its allies.

But Taiwan has been in the news since a January 13 election, in which voters gave the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party a historic third consecutive presidential victory, defying Chinese warnings that it would increase re-election. Risk of conflict.

Beijing responded immediately after the vote: “Taiwan is part of China.”

China’s ruling Communist Party considers Taiwan part of its territory, though it has never controlled it, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has not ruled out using force to bring the island under Beijing’s control.

The head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John Aquilino, told a conference in Hawaii after Taiwan’s election that he hoped Beijing would show its displeasure with the vote’s outcome.

“There is an ongoing pressure campaign against Taiwan and we are monitoring it after the election,” Aquilino told the Pacific Forum.

“I’m not sure what they’re going to do, but I expect a show of force against Taiwan in the short term.”

The American admiral also highlighted the importance of exercises such as the joint exercise between the United States and Japan to be held this week.

“Establishing the capability to be able to deploy forces, to be able to sustain the force, to be able to train and operate with our allies and partners in their home region provides an asymmetric advantage,” Aquilino said.