Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan)
January 17, 2008 By Toshinao Ishii, Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent
TAIPEI -- A Chinese submarine tracked a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier for 28 hours in the Taiwan Strait in November, while the U.S. carrier launched an aircraft in response to prepare for any contingency, according to the Tuesday edition of Taiwan's China Times newspaper.
According to the report, the Chinese Song-class submarine was operating southeast of Taiwan on Nov. 23 and shadowed the USS Kitty Hawk, which entered the strait while returning to Yokosuka after China canceled its long-scheduled port call in Hong Kong.
The Kitty Hawk observed the Chinese submarine, and after a U.S. antisubmarine patrol aircraft confirmed the Chinese submarine was keeping pace with the U.S. carrier by reducing speed and stopping, the U.S. vessel launched an aircraft to watch for possible hostile behavior by the Chinese Navy.
It was the first direct military confrontation between the two nations' naval forces in the Taiwan Strait since 1996, when the United States dispatched two aircraft carriers to the tense waters where China conducted a series of missile tests, the report said.
A Taiwan military official told the daily the Chinese Navy was intensifying activities in waters east of Taiwan in an attempt to "make the Taiwan Strait a 'Chinese waterway.'"
January 17, 2008 By Toshinao Ishii, Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent
TAIPEI -- A Chinese submarine tracked a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier for 28 hours in the Taiwan Strait in November, while the U.S. carrier launched an aircraft in response to prepare for any contingency, according to the Tuesday edition of Taiwan's China Times newspaper.
According to the report, the Chinese Song-class submarine was operating southeast of Taiwan on Nov. 23 and shadowed the USS Kitty Hawk, which entered the strait while returning to Yokosuka after China canceled its long-scheduled port call in Hong Kong.
The Kitty Hawk observed the Chinese submarine, and after a U.S. antisubmarine patrol aircraft confirmed the Chinese submarine was keeping pace with the U.S. carrier by reducing speed and stopping, the U.S. vessel launched an aircraft to watch for possible hostile behavior by the Chinese Navy.
It was the first direct military confrontation between the two nations' naval forces in the Taiwan Strait since 1996, when the United States dispatched two aircraft carriers to the tense waters where China conducted a series of missile tests, the report said.
A Taiwan military official told the daily the Chinese Navy was intensifying activities in waters east of Taiwan in an attempt to "make the Taiwan Strait a 'Chinese waterway.'"