Last week, China sent a reconnaissance aircraft over the waters of the Pacific Ocean east of Taiwan, where a Chinese media report stated that it monitored and gathered intelligence on an exercise involving naval forces from the United States, Japan, France, and Canada. The state-backed Chinese newspaper "Global Times" reported on Sunday that analysts indicated a modified version of the "Y-9" cargo plane, equipped with intelligence-gathering equipment, likely conducted the surveillance and information collection on the exercise.
"Global Times" also cited a research center based in Beijing that reported two American aircraft carriers, the "USS Nimitz" and the "USS Ronald Reagan," operating around the geopolitically significant Ryukyu Islands in the Philippine Sea since Thursday. These islands separate the East China Sea from the Philippine Sea and are located in the western Pacific between Japan and Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory.
The U.S. 7th Fleet stated that "the United States began training in the Philippine Sea on Friday with two groups of aircraft carriers operating together for the first time since June 2020." The Japanese Ministry of Defense reported on Thursday that a modified version of the "Y-9" was spotted in the Pacific. A spokesperson for the Japanese ministry stated on Monday that "the ministry is analyzing a piece of equipment attached to the underside of the Y-9 aircraft that has not been seen before."
Military confrontations between China and the United States along with its allies in the western Pacific have increased in recent years, with China stepping up its activities to demonstrate control in the East and South China Seas, as well as around Taiwan.
