Overview
- The Liaoning carrier strike group returned to its home port in Qingdao after a roughly 40-day far-sea training deployment that included operations in the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea, Chinese officials announced on June 22.
- Beijing released video showing day‑and‑night carrier flight operations and a J-15 fighter refueling from a PLAAF Yu-20 tanker, and state reports said the Liaoning conducted the navy’s first publicly reported joint drills with an amphibious assault ship group.
- Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense reported that the Fujian, China’s most advanced carrier with electromagnetic catapults, transited the Taiwan Strait during Taiwan’s five-day military exercise and was monitored using joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance methods.
- Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force tracked and shadowed elements of the Liaoning group in the Miyako Strait and the East China Sea, while Chinese state media accused Japanese forces of close-range ‘harassment,’ creating competing official accounts of interactions at sea.
- The developments underscore PLA naval modernization and growing far-sea capability through new technology and tactics, a change that could prompt more frequent carrier transits, closer regional monitoring, and a higher chance of accidental encounters.