BEIJING — China deployed a reconnaissance plane over Pacific waters east of Taiwan final week that Chinese media mentioned monitored and gathered intelligence on an train involving the navies of the United States, Japan, France and Canada.
A Y-9 cargo airplane variant fitted with intelligence-gathering gear probably monitored and picked up intelligence on the train, China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper reported on Sunday, citing analysts.
Two US plane carriers, the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan, had been working across the geopolitically essential Ryukyu Islands within the Philippine Sea since Thursday, the Global Times cited a Beijing-based assume tank as saying.
The islands separate the East China Sea from the Philippine Sea, and dot the West Pacific between Japan and Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.
On Friday, the US started the train within the Philippine Sea with two service strike teams collectively working for the primary time since June 2020, the US seventh Fleet mentioned in an announcement.
The Japanese protection ministry reported a sighting of a Y-9 reconnaissance variant within the Pacific on Thursday.
A spokesperson for the Japanese ministry mentioned on Monday it was analyzing a chunk of kit hooked up to the undercarriage of the Y-9 variant that had not been seen earlier than.
Military encounters between China and the United States and its allies within the Western Pacific have risen in recent times as China has grown more and more assertive within the East and South China Seas, in addition to round Taiwan.
Days earlier than the quadrilateral train, the coast guards of the Philippines, United States and Japan held their first trilateral train off the coast of Bataan. — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
