BEIJING (Reuters) – The Fujian, China’s third and most advanced aircraft carrier, recently sailed through the Taiwan Strait and into the South China Sea as part of sea trials, the Chinese navy said on Friday, two extremely sensitive waterways.
The carrier, first unveiled in 2022, began sea trials last year and has yet to formally enter service.
“Our country’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, recently transited the Taiwan Strait en route to relevant waters in the South China Sea to conduct scientific research trials and training missions,” China’s navy said.
“This cross-regional trial and training exercise for the Fujian is a routine arrangement in the carrier’s construction process and is not directed at any specific target,” it added.
Japan’s defence ministry said late on Thursday that the Fujian had entered the East China Sea, sailing southwest toward Taiwan, accompanied by two Chinese missile destroyers.
Taiwan’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China has over the past five years or so stepped up its military presence around Taiwan, including staging war games, to assert its sovereignty claims.
Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.
China considers the Taiwan Strait to be its territorial waters. Taiwan, the United States and many of its allies say it is an international waterway.
The South China Sea, most of which China claims in dispute with countries including the Philippines and Vietnam, has been another site of increased Chinese military activity.
The Fujian, designed and built domestically, is larger and more advanced than the Shandong, commissioned in late 2019, and the Liaoning, which China bought second-hand from Ukraine in 1998.
(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei and Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
