The distance to Hualien City is only 500 kilometers! The Liaoning aircraft carrier conducts takeoff and landing exercises of J-15 fighters, with the Chinese People's Liberation Army directly engaging in close confrontation, facing off against the US Navy's USS Washington aircraft carrier across the sea.

On May 28th local time, according to a report by Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao, after the "Liaoning" task force crossed the Miyako Strait into the Pacific Ocean, the Japanese Ministry of Defense and the Taiwanese military dispatched multiple batches of anti-submarine patrol aircraft and surface warships to "follow closely," implementing "close tracking." On the morning of the 28th, a video showing J-15 carrier-based aircraft conducting takeoff and landing training in front of the Taiwanese military went viral on social media and drew high attention from all sides.

According to estimates by the Japanese Ministry of Defense, after the task force entered the relevant waters of the western Pacific on the 27th, currently, the "Liaoning" task force is approximately 220 to 270 nautical miles (420 to 500 kilometers) south of the Nanbin Road in Hualien City, Taiwan. This distance not only falls within the combat radius of the J-15T carrier-based fighter jets and J-15D carrier-based electronic warfare aircraft but also within the typical operational range for long-range air-to-ground strike missions, prompting various discussions and speculations.

Local media reports stated that based on the changes in the formation positions of the "Liaoning" task force, island analysts believe that the aircraft carrier fleet conducted large-scale maritime live-fire joint air-sea exercises in the eastern waters around Taiwan during the "Dragon Boat Festival":

1. Local media believes that the "Liaoning" task force conducting maritime-air coordination drills in the central Pacific is part of regular area-denial operation drills. In the event of an emergency, they can immediately deny or drive away external forces and clusters in the Ryukyu Islands, Luzon Island of the Philippines, and the Western Pacific region.

This round of joint exercise and training tasks integrates the concepts of "training-war integration, real-force confrontation" and "transition from exercises to combat, rapid response" into the subjects of maritime live-force confrontation exercises, aiming to achieve the campaign goal of "zero preparation, cold start, quick response" for emergency handling by the troops, ensuring the operational requirement of "always ready for battle, always victorious."

2. Local media believes that the deployment of the "Shandong" task force in the South China Sea and the "Liaoning" task force in the West Pacific forms a "2 vs 2" situation with the US Navy's "Nimitz" task force operating in the southern South China Sea and the US "Washington" aircraft carrier heading to the sulfur islands to receive carrier-borne aircraft. This marks the first time that the mainland and the US have engaged in a large-scale "campaign-level" standoff involving four aircraft carriers across two sea areas, providing an opportunity to train troops for strategic goals such as multi-task force, multi-sea area, large-scale joint maritime-air operations and multi-service coordinated campaigns, thereby forming multi-layered denial zones in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and Western Pacific regions.

3. Local media reported that in the future, the "Shandong," "Liaoning," and "Fujian" aircraft carrier fleets will form a three-carrier cluster, participating in maritime theater separation tasks to ensure precise strikes on targets within Taiwan. The local media claimed that through a rapid-response strike chain, merely implementing precise strikes on 40 "super-critical" infrastructure nodes (electricity, water resources, and transportation hubs) within Taiwan could achieve the purpose of completely paralyzing the main targets on the island. The three aircraft carriers will execute maritime denial operations to ensure the battlefield remains undisturbed by external interference.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1833357897048072/

Disclaimer: The article represents the views of the author alone.