JAKARTA - A Chinese aircraft carrier was spotted sailing in the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Friday, hours before President Joe Biden's scheduled telephone talks with President Xi Jinping.
A source with direct knowledge of the matter, who was not authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the carrier Shandong was sailing close to Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Island, which lies directly opposite the Chinese city of Xiamen.
"At around 10:30 am, CV-17 appeared about 30 nautical miles southwest of Kinmen, and was photographed by a passenger on a civil flight," the source said, referring to the Shandong hull number.
USS Ralph Johnson (DDG-114), the United States' Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, is shadowing the carrier at least partially on its route. The Shandong had no aircraft on its deck and was sailing north through the strait, the sources added.
Taiwan also sent a warship to monitor the situation, the source said.
Taiwan's Ministry of Defense, in a brief statement, confirmed the carrier's passing, but gave no details other than saying its forces have "full grip" on what Chinese ships and aircraft are doing in the Taiwan Strait.
Separately, a US Navy spokesman Lt. Mark Langford said the USS Ralph Johnson had made a routine transit of the Taiwan Strait March 17 (local time), through international waters in accordance with international law.
Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian referred questions to the Defense Ministry, which did not respond to requests for comment, but said Shandong had a regular training schedule.
"We should not relate this to the communication between the heads of state of China and the United States. You may think it is too sensitive. It is you who are sensitive, not the Taiwan Strait," Zhao told reporters in Beijing.
The carrier's voyage came about 12 hours before US President Joe Biden was due to speak with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
The source described the timing of the Shandong's movement so close to the call as provocative and that it was unusual to sail during the day, with previous missions taking place at night.
Taiwan itself is already on high alert because of the Ukraine war, wary of China taking advantage of the situation to go its own way, although there has been no sign of Beijing making any military strikes yet.
Lo Chih-cheng, a senior lawmaker from Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party called the Shandong transit a particularly provocative message, at a time when countries in the region were already on alert for the war in Ukraine and hours before Biden-Xi's call.
"Tensions in the Taiwan Strait will not escalate sharply because of this, but will likely cause neighboring countries to increase their level of military alert," he told Reuters.
China claims that Taiwan governs democratically as its own territory, and has over the past two years stepped up military activity near the island to assert its sovereignty claim, which worries Taipei and Washington.
Taiwan rejects China's claim to sovereignty and has repeatedly vowed to defend its freedoms and democracy.
The Shandong is China's newest aircraft carrier, commissioned in 2019. That same year, shortly before Taiwan's presidential and parliamentary elections, it sailed through the Taiwan Strait, a move that Taiwan condemned as an attempt at intimidation.
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