After Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, many analysts predicted that China would take this moment to launch an 'invasion' of Taiwan, knowing that the attention of the United States and its European allies was focused on the crisis in Ukraine.
However, this seems to have gone wrong, even though there is no signal that an invasion of Taiwan will be carried out in the near future, Beijing continues to 'check the waves' to measure the response of opposing forces in the region.
In addition to continuously flying fighter jets, reconnaissance planes and bombers to Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), the latest news says that China is intensifying provocations wrapped in military exercises in the region.
Quoted from asia.nikkei.com (11/5/2022), Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said that the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning, had been in waters just 160 km southwest of Okinawa's Okidaito Island in Okinawa Prefecture and 150 km south of Ishigaki Island.
It is not the distance between the Liaoning aircraft carrier that makes Japan nervous, more than that it is known that from 3 to 8 May, the carrier has made more than 100 landings and takeoffs on fighter jets and helicopters.
From Taiwan's perspective, the activities of the Liaoning aircraft carrier are also of concern to Taiwan, because the location of the Chinese aircraft carrier is also not very far from Taiwan's territory.
Although the coordinates of the aircraft carrier Liaoning are in international waters, the Japanese Navy has sent the destroyer Izumo to gather information. Japan's defense minister said China's activities were likely intended to improve the operational capabilities of aircraft carriers and other assets, as well as increase the ability to carry out operations in distant seas and airspace.
China's military has previously said it held air and naval exercises in east and southwest Taiwan from Friday to Sunday. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense reported that 18 Chinese aircraft had already entered the island's air defense identification zone on Friday.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is believed to have influenced Beijing's assessment of the regional security environment. Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many thought that China would likely use military force in 2027 to achieve unification with Taiwan.
The Liaoning carrier is not purely Chinese. In contrast to the carrier Shandong, which is China's first domestically produced aircraft carrier. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine sold the aircraft carrier Kuznetsov. It should be noted that at that time, the construction process for the Kuznetsov ship, which began in 1985, had not yet been completed.
So China needs to be rebuilt. China took 13 years to complete the construction of the ship in 2011. One year later or in 2012, the Liaoning was officially commissioned in the Chinese Navy
The Liaoning was not originally intended for combatant ships. Initially the Liaoning was assigned to be a ship for tests and training. The Chinese government finally decided to make the Liaoning a combatant ship after various modifications.
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