{"id":341023,"date":"2021-10-07T21:40:50","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T21:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/usa-uk-southchinasea-10072021172517.html"},"modified":"2021-10-07T21:40:50","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T21:40:50","slug":"us-uk-aircraft-carriers-lead-show-of-naval-might-around-south-china-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/10\/07\/us-uk-aircraft-carriers-lead-show-of-naval-might-around-south-china-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"US, UK Aircraft Carriers Lead Show of Naval Might Around South China Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n
Three aircraft carriers and a dozen other warships from U.S.-allied nations sailed on the fringes of the South China Sea this week in one of the biggest shows of Western maritime might in the region for years.<\/p>\n
Those drills in the Philippine Sea will be followed by two weeks of large-scale military exercises in the South China Sea \u2013 sending a message to Beijing and asserting the freedom of navigation in an increasingly tense Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is probably the first time since the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996 that we saw these kind of carrier-based operations,\u201d said Richard Bitzinger, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 3, the British Royal Navy\u2019s flagship aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, together with two U.S. carriers \u2013 the USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan - joined 14 other naval ships from the U.S., U.K., Japan, Canada, New Zealand and the Netherlands to conduct so-called combined exercises in the Philippine Sea.<\/p>\n
Images taken at the scene show the impressive armada sailing in the sun, with an arrow-like formation of fighter jets overhead.<\/p>\n
\u201cHalf a million tons of sea power projection from six nations with an equally impressive air wing,\u201d was how it was described by Commodore Steve Moorhouse, commander of the U.K. Carrier Strike Group 21 (CSG21) led by the HMS Queen Elizabeth.<\/p>\n
A day later the SCS Probing Initiative, a Chinese research network, alerted that the USS Carl Vinson and HMS Queen Elizabeth had crossed the Bashi Channel into the South China Sea -- the second time for both of the aircraft carriers since July.<\/p>\n
The Carl Vinson has since left for Japan.<\/p>\n
A statement from the U.K. Ministry of Defence on Tuesday said that over the next two weeks the Queen Elizabeth \u201cwill navigate the South China Sea with ships and aircraft from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States\u201d and take part in a large-scale joint maritime exercise.<\/p>\n
The RSIS expert Bitzinger was likening the show of force to March 1996, when America deployed two aircraft carriers in response to China testing missiles in seas near Taiwan in the run-up to an election there \u2013 sending a warning to self-governing island not to declare independence.<\/p>\n
At the time, observers touted it as the biggest display of military power in Asia since the Vietnam War. The U.S. deployed two carrier groups led by the USS Nimitz and the now-decommissioned USS Independence.<\/p>\n
The main purpose of the show of force then, same as now, was to send a message to Beijing \u2013 and some see that as provocative. \u201cThey are assisting the U.S. in threatening China,\u201d said Mark J. Valencia, adjunct senior scholar at China\u2019s National Institute for South China Sea Studies (NISCSS), reflecting Chinese concerns.<\/p>\n