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Laura Zhou

Two of China’s aircraft carriers, including its biggest and best, have docked at the same naval base near the Yellow Sea, raising suggestions that another dual-carrier exercise is on the horizon.
Satellite images circulating on Chinese social media this week show the Fujian, which was officially commissioned last month, docked at a naval base in Qingdao in eastern China’s Shandong province.
In one of the images purportedly taken on Thursday, the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier, docked on the other side of the pier with the Fujian.
On Friday, maritime safety authorities in Dalian – about 320km (200 miles) from Qingdao – said a military activity would be held in the Bohai Strait and northern Yellow Sea for one week from 4pm on Sunday.
Ships would be prohibited from entering the area, the notice added. Sitting on the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, with the Yellow Sea to the east and the Bohai Sea to the west, Dalian guards the entrance to the Bohai Sea and is the home of a major naval and shipbuilding hub for the PLA Navy.


According to the Taiwanese defence ministry, the Fujian was also observed transiting the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday, two days after a video posted on social media showed it leaving its homeport, the Yulin Naval Base in Sanya, Hainan province.
Addressing the island’s legislature on Wednesday, Taiwanese Defence Minister Wellington Koo Li-hsiung said photos taken from F-16 fighter jets indicated that the Fujian had no carrier-based aircraft on board as it went through the strait.
The island’s military also “monitored the People’s Liberation Army’s operations throughout”, Koo said.
Koo and various observers had suggested that the vessel was heading to a shipyard in Shanghai for maintenance, but its presence at the naval base indicated otherwise.
Song Zhongping, a military commentator and former PLA instructor, said that by docking together the Fujian and the Liaoning could be preparing for joint training operations soon.
“One plus one is greater than two, especially when the two aircraft carriers have different capacities and they need to carry out technical exchanges, especially between the crews,” Song said.
The Fujian is the PLA’s most advanced aircraft carrier and the world’s biggest conventionally powered warship. It is also equipped with electromagnetic catapults, making China the only second country after the United States to deploy the technology.
But its crew has much less operational experience than the Liaoning, which entered service 13 years ago.
“The Fujian is relatively young and could benefit from studying the Liaoning’s operations and experience,” Song said.
Now with three aircraft carriers, China might also look to progress from dual-carrier strike group exercises to drills involving all of its aircraft carriers, he added.
Days after entering service, the Fujian conducted its first “maritime live-force training” in mid-November to improve the crew’s ability to operate the electromagnetic catapult systems and other equipment as well as improving coordination with the air wing, state broadcaster CCTV reported at that time.
Satellite images posted online indicated that those operations took place in the South China Sea, with another PLA Navy carrier, the Shandong, nearby.


China is on a mission to create a blue-water navy and has ramped up its combat-readiness training in recent years, with an eye to break the first island chain.
The chain is a string of major Pacific archipelagos along East Asia’s coastline stretching from Okinawa through to Taiwan and the Philippines.
China views it as part of the US-led containment strategy to limit its access to the western Pacific.

In October last year, the Liaoning and the Shandong – the only two active aircraft carriers at the time – sailed side by side in the South China Sea in their first dual-carrier exercises.
Eight months later, the two carrier groups ventured together past the first island chain, with the Liaoning travelling further east than Guam, the most critical strategic US military hub in the Pacific.
It was the first time a Chinese carrier had gone beyond the second island chain that stretches from Tokyo to south of Palau.
The PLA Navy said the two carrier groups were deployed in the western Pacific and surrounding waters and conducted exercises to test their “far-sea defences and joint operational capabilities”.
The activities of China’s aircraft carriers have attracted intense attention from its neighbours, including Japan, a key US ally.
Ties between Beijing and Tokyo have languished since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told the Japanese parliament last month that an attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan – potentially triggering a military response from Tokyo.
Beijing demanded Takaichi retract her remarks, which the Japanese leader has not done, and stepped up economic and military pressure on Japan.
Earlier this month, the Japanese Ministry of Defence said it spotted the Liaoning carrier strike group as close as around 190km (118 miles) east of Kikai Island after transiting the Miyako Strait on December 8 and conducting drills along the Ryukyu Islands.
At that time, Japan claimed that in two separate incidents, one of the ship-based J-15 fighters from the Liaoning locked fire-control radars on F-15 jets that scrambled from nearby bases to monitor the Chinese fleet.
China rejected the accusation and said it had notified Japan in advance about the drills.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the United States and Japan, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.


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Satellite images indicate the Fujian and the Liaoning have docked in Qingdao, Shandong province. Photo: X/CHINAPLA1

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Satellite images indicate the vessel has docked with the Liaoning at a naval base in the country’s east


Satellite images indicate the vessel has docked with the Liaoning at a naval base in the country’s east.


China’s aircraft carriers

Japan

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Sanae Takaichi

Is China’s Fujian gearing up for a dual aircraft carrier exercise?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Satellite images indicate the vessel has docked with the Liaoning at a naval base in the country’s east

Satellite images indicate the vessel has docked with the Liaoning at a naval base in the country’s east