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A Few Weeks Ago, American And Chinese Aircraft Carriers Were On A Collision Course In The Western Pacific—Check Out The Map

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When you hear Pentagon officials talk about “great-power competition,” this is what they mean. In April and May, the U.S. and Chinese navies each sailed two aircraft carriers and their escorts into the South China Sea.

At the same time, the Philippine military mobilized to protect resource-rich islands from Chinese militia boats, Chinese warplanes probed Taiwanese air-defenses and U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers arrived in Guam for patrols over the region.

It was one of the heaviest concentrations of competing air and naval power in modern times—and in one of the world’s most volatile regions. Expect these near collisions of fleets and air forces to continue as China grows its armed forces and the United States and its allies make plans to deter them.

The dangerous month began around April 3, when CNS Liaoning, the Chinese navy’s first aircraft carrier, sailed with her escorts through the Miyako Strait south of Okinawa, bound for the Philippine Sea.

Those waters east of Taiwan are critical for Chinese war plans. If Beijing ever makes good on its threat to invade Taiwan and “reunify” the island democracy with communist China, it’s likely Chinese carriers—Liaoning, her sister Shandong and eventually the new, larger Type 003 carrier that’s currently under construction in Shanghai—will stage east of Taiwan for air strikes supporting the main invasion force fighting its way across the Taiwan Strait.

The same waters could play host to the most destructive naval battles since World War II as American and allied carriers and submarines attempt to sink the Chinese flattops and amphibious ships.

Liaoning turned south after breaking into the Philippine Sea, an American destroyer tagging along the whole way. The Chinese flattop skirted Taiwan’s east coast, threading overlapping Taiwanese air and naval exercises. By April 10, Liaoning was in the South China Sea south of Taiwan.

The same day, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt was sailing into the South China Sea from the opposite direction. USS Makin Island, a big-deck amphibious ship embarking F-35B stealth jump-jets, was traveling along roughly the same course. The two carriers briefly sailed side by side, combining their planes and escorts into one of the most powerful naval formations to appear anywhere in decades.

They did so within easy striking distance of Liaoning and her own battle group. Around the same time, the Philippine air force, navy, coast guard and fisheries-protection force were surging forces into the rich waters surrounding Palawan, off the west coast of Luzon, the Philippines’ main island.

The Philippine deployment, which peaked around a week later, squeezed out 200 boats belonging to China’s shadowy maritime militia. The boats for weeks had been crowding Manila’s exclusive economic zone, a possible prelude to yet another Chinese land-grab in the South China Sea.

The three fleets did not clash. In wartime, they surely would have—in the South China Sea or farther north in the Philippine Sea. If you doubt the potential for destruction, consider what other forces arrived in Guam—America’s main Pacific outpost—on April 18. Four B-52 bombers, each capable of lobbing dozens of cruise missiles at enemy ships or ground troops.

Liaoning sailed home to Qingdao in late April. Roosevelt and Makin Island departed the western Pacific around the same time, eventually to be replaced in the region by the U.S. Navy’s two Japan-based flattops.

But China wasn’t done practicing for war. No sooner had Liaoning returned to port than her sister ship Shandong left her own home port of Sanya. Shandong sailed a few hundred miles into the South China Sea, worked out her air wing then returned home. It’s a reminder that the Chinese fleet can sustain as many big decks in the region as the United States can do.

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