aircraft carrier

While Donald Trump is tweeting his new year's greetings to his friends, and especially enemies, China is thinking three weeks ahead to the day the president-elect is officially inaugurated, and is worried what that could mean for a suddenly empowered Taiwan, whose outreach to Trump now means that the long-standing "One China" policy is now a topic of negotiation.  As a result, Reuters reports that China's military, alarmed by Trump's support of Taiwan, is considering strong measures to prevent the island from moving toward independence.

As reported yesterday, tensions between China and Taiwan rose again when Beijing sailed its only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, which over the weekend was "shown off" conducting dramatic military drills, around the southern tip of Taiwan passing southeast of the Pratas Islands, which are controlled by Taiwan, heading southwest.

Two days after China demonstratively showed off a live-fire exercise involving its one and only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, in the Yellow Sea, with the Defense Ministry hinting that the carrier would next sail to the South China Sea after announcing that "as a next step it will conduct scheduled cross-sea training and tests," Beijing did just that and as Reuters reports, a group of Chinese warships led by the country's sole aircraft carrier passed south of Taiwan on Monday, and entered the top half of the South China Sea, in what China has termed a routine exercise.

Three weeks after a Russian fighter jet crashed in the Mediterranean Sea shortly after launching from its aircraft carrier near the coast of Syria, overnight a fighter jet based on the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov skid off the deck during landing and became lost at sea after an arrestor gear line snapped and failed to stop the aircraft, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

Su-33 fighter on the deck of Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier

The US aircraft carrier CVN-65, the USS Harry Truman, has begun striking at various Islamic State targets from the Mediterranean Sea on Friday. This is the first time a carrier group has launched airstrikes from the area since the 2003 invasion in Iraq. According to a statement by the US Naval Forces Europe-Africa, fighter jets conducted combat sorties from the aircraft carrier in support of Operation Inherent Resolve on Friday after transiting the Suez Canal the day before.