TAIPEI — China has sent multiple flotillas, including the Liaoning carrier strike group, to exercise east of the first island chain, Taiwan's National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu said on Wednesday, warning that the threat to Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines is “obvious”.

Source: The Formosan (TVBS/UDN/FTV)

Wu posted on X an illustration showing 34 PLA warships and 19 China Coast Guard and other government vessels — 53 in total — operating across East Asian waters, The Formosan reported, citing Taiwanese outlets TVBS, UDN and FTV News. The Liaoning group was shown in the Philippine Sea, with Chinese naval and government ships around Taiwan's northwest, southwest and eastern waters. Wu said the council is closely monitoring the activity.

The deployment was independently corroborated in its broad outline by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Strategist, which reported this week that a Chinese strike group built around the aircraft carrier Liaoning sailed through the waters of the Ryukyus before continuing on to waters around the Philippines, where it remained as of Wednesday.

Source: ASPI The Strategist

The Formosan said the deployments come during a politically sensitive period as Beijing convenes its Communist Party fifth plenary session, and follow Japan's report of a Chinese coast guard vessel and three naval ships passing through waters off Kagoshima earlier this week. The reports cited did not include a Chinese government response to Wu's statement.

The first island chain — running from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines — is the line Chinese naval planners must cross to operate freely in the western Pacific. Awaaz Punjab reported earlier this week that the Liaoning and its escorts had transited the Basilan Strait in the Philippines archipelago before moving toward the Philippine Sea.