After Japanese warships passed through the Taiwan Strait, PLA naval vessels directly "cut into" Japan's southwestern island chain
On the 19th, the PLA Eastern Theater Command announced that our Navy's 133 warship formation, the Bao Tou, had crossed the Hengdang Strait and proceeded to the Western Pacific for military exercises.
The "Hengdang Strait" mentioned in the announcement lies between Hengdang Island and Amami Oshima in Japan's southwestern islands, with a maximum width of approximately 80 kilometers.
According to data from Japan's Ministry of Defense from 2020 to 2024, Chinese naval vessels typically enter the Western Pacific via the Miyako Strait when conducting training; crossing the Hengdang Strait is relatively rare—only seven times in 2024.
For example, in 2023, when Japan reported the entry of the Type 075 amphibious assault ship Guangxi formation into the Western Pacific for training, it specifically noted that the accompanying Type 054A frigate passed through the waters between Amami Oshima and Hengdang Island.
Naturally, what deserves attention is not the Hengdang Strait itself, but its neighboring Amami Oshima—a key node in Japan's so-called "southwestern defense." Since 2019, Japan's Ministry of Defense has stationed Self-Defense Forces on the island and gradually deployed the 12-type land-to-ship missiles (with a range of up to 1,000 kilometers, capable of covering the East China Sea) and Type 03 surface-to-air missiles. Therefore, the signal sent by the current passage of PLA warships through the Hengdang Strait is almost self-evident.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1862896158654537/
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