U.S. Sends Two Aircraft Carriers to South China Sea for "Exercises"

quote:

---

USS Reagan, USS Nimitz to visit South China Sea’s disputed waters while Chinese navy holds drills there



WSJ

The U.S. is sending two aircraft carriers into one of Asia’s hottest spots to deliver a pointed message to China that it doesn’t appreciate Beijing’s military ramp-up in the region.

The USS Ronald Reagan and USS Nimitz are set to hold some of the U.S. Navy’s largest exercises in recent years in the South China Sea from Saturday—at the same time that China is holding drills in the area.

With tensions rising between the two over trade, the coronavirus pandemic and China’s crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong, U.S. officials said they wanted to challenge what they called Beijing’s unlawful territorial claims.

“The purpose is to show an unambiguous signal to our partners and allies that we are committed to regional security and stability,” said Rear Adm. George M. Wikoff, commander of the strike group led by the USS Ronald Reagan, in an interview.

The exercises by the two carriers and four other warships will include round-the-clock flights testing the striking ability of carrier-based aircraft.

In recent years, the South China Sea has been the center of Beijing’s effort to project its power farther from its traditional boundaries. China claims sovereignty over almost all of the sea, rejecting claims by neighboring Southeast Asian nations, and it has deployed missiles and jamming equipment on newly built artificial islands to make it harder for the U.S. and its allies to operate in the region.

Its latest military move in the sea started on July 1, when Chinese exercises began around the Paracel Islands, which Beijing seized from Vietnam in 1974. State media said they would run through Sunday.

It is rare for major U.S. and Chinese military drills to take place in the same region at the same time.

---

quote:

---

The USS Ronald Reagan and USS Nimitz will arrive from the Philippine Sea, where they have already spent several days of continuous training, with one carrier flying planes during the day and the other during the night.

“We’re really operating at a higher tempo and simulating a higher end of combat power than we would typically do in a shorter length exercise,” said Adm. Wikoff, the USS Ronald Reagan strike-force commander. “We’re flying around the clock, hundreds of sorties a day in a 24-hour period.”

---