The United States has deployed three Navy aircraft carriers to the Pacific Ocean amid growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over control of the South China Sea and Taiwan.
The USS Ronald Reagan and the USS Theodore Roosevelt are conducting military operations in the western Pacific region, and the USS Nimitz is in the east, according to CNN, which cited Navy news releases. Each vessel is capable of carrying more than 60 aircraft.
The last time the U.S. mobilized warships in the Pacific to such a level was in 2017, when tensions swelled with North Korea about its nuclear weapons program.
The latest American maneuvers on the world stage were first reported by The Associated Press on Friday.
The Roosevelt returned to sea about June 4, 10 weeks after being sidelined due to a massive coronavirus outbreak aboard the ship. The Reagan also recently had its movements restricted due to the pandemic but returned to sea in late May from its home port in Japan.
The Navy has seven active aircraft carriers overall. The other four are in port for maintenance.
The Pentagon is moving aggressively to strengthen U.S. military power in Asia, which is considered more urgent after the U.S. withdrew last year from a 33-year-old arms control treaty that barred U.S. land-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia.
In Beijing, the American buildup is being seen as a troubling provocation.
The country’s state-sponsored media began publishing reports that Beijing “will not back down to defend its interests,” CNN reported.
“China possesses aircraft carrier killer weapons like the DF-21D and DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles,” the People’s Liberation Army's official English website said, according to CNN.
On Sunday, Communist Party’s Global Times specifically said the carriers threatened Chinese interests in the South China Sea.
“By massing these aircraft carriers, the US is attempting to demonstrate to the whole region and even the world that it remains the most powerful naval force, as they could enter the South China Sea and threaten Chinese troops on the Xisha and Nansha islands (Paracel and Spratly islands) as well as vessels passing through nearby waters, so the US could carry out its hegemonic politics,” said Li Jie, a Beijing-based naval expert, according to CNN.
The Defense Department is also exploring territories in the region to base missiles capable of threatening China, but so far there have been no takers, according to The Associated Press. The governor of the Japanese territory Okinawa last week backed away from U.S. efforts to install missiles there.
Senior officials say that putting hundreds of American missiles with non-nuclear warheads in Asia would quickly and cheaply shift the balance of power in the western Pacific back in the United States’ favor amid growing Pentagon concern that China’s own expanding arsenal of missiles and other military capabilities threaten U.S. bases in the region and have emboldened Beijing to menace U.S. allies in Asia.
The U.S. has a defense treaty with Japan, as it does with South Korea, the Philippines and Australia. Taiwan is not a formal ally but has close, unofficial defense ties with Washington.
The U.S. Pacific Fleet said last month that all its submarines were at sea conducting operations in the western Pacific.
— Information provided by The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
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