China Sends Two Aircraft Carriers Deeper Into Pacific For First Time, After NATO Bolstered Presence

Western media and American allies in east Asia are hyperventilating over Chinese warships being deployed in... regional waters off China.

"In a display of Beijing’s growing military reach, the Chinese Navy sent two aircraft carriers into the Pacific Ocean, far from the country’s coast, for the first time to conduct exercises together, Japan’s defense minister, Gen Nakatani, said," writes the NY Times on Tuesday. Let's compare this 'threat' to the eleven active nuclear-powered aircraft carriers that America currently has in action, with worldwide patrol and reach.

Nakatani informed reporters that the pair of PLA Navy carriers engaged in exercises which included jet fighters launching and landing, in an area to the east of Iwo Jima, about 750 miles south of Tokyo. Of course, this area has had a strong permanent American military presence going back to WW2.

Tokyo confirmed that Japan's tiny navy monitored the activities of the Chinese carriers from afar, given it was a first instance that the carriers had operated together in the Pacific beyond the islands of Japan.

The Liaoning and the Shandong were accompanied by PLA warship escort vessels, as is common with carrier groups.

And why would China want to bolster its navy and send it's paltry sum of two carriers deeper into the Pacific?

...it could be because Chinese officials in Beijing are used to opening up their daily newspapers and seeing provocative headlines like the following: 

But Washington and its regional allies are keeping a close eye on China's rapid naval expansion, given also a third aircraft carrier has been built, the Fujian, and is currently undergoing sea trials before official active deployment. And a fourth carrier is further being constructed.

Again, might China have real reason to worry? And all the while the US Navy (and increasingly other Western navies) routinely send warships through the contested Taiwan Strait, typically accompanied by jingoistic statements of American neocon Congressmen threatening all-out war should Beijing ever attempt to unite the self-ruled island of Taiwan with the mainland.

The question remains: can most Americans find Taiwan on a map? Well, yes it's true they might start caring when the world's supply of semiconductors comes under direct threat, and the iPhone addicted out-of-shape masses might have to put down their devices for a moment.

Even NATO, which is fundamentally a European, trans-Atlantic military alliance, is getting in on the Pacific action with an eye on China... in China's own backyard.

Bloomberg reported last August that "NATO is bolstering its presence in the Western Pacific by sending warships to more places, a move that risks stoking tensions with China, which is worried about the alliance’s growing influence in the region."

Even Italian vessels are seeking to flex: "The latest entrant is the Italian aircraft carrier Cavour, the first time Rome has deployed its lone carrier to the Pacific. The Cavour and an Italian frigate recently held exercises with the US carrier USS Abraham Lincoln near the island of Guam. A day later, F-35 stealth jets and AV-8B Harriers launched from the Cavour," Bloomberg wrote. Italy?... 

Sensationalist MSM headlines, if they were written from the opposite perspective...

So at least from a realist and strategic point of view, China wanting to extend its carriers sphere of patrol and influence makes perfect sense. This is simply the way the world works, and the 'great powers' operate.