US Aircraft Carrier Group Begins “Routine” Patrols In Disputed South China Sea
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Feb 19, 2017
Threatening to destabilize the tentative improvement in Sino-US relations achieved in recent days following Trump’s recent concession over the “One China” policy, was the US deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) to the disputed waters of the South China Sea on Saturday as part of maritime “routine operations”, according to an announcement posted on the Vinson’s Facebook page.
Sailing with the 97,000-ton Vinson is the guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer, the Navy said in a statement. The Vinson carries a flight group of more than 60 aircraft, including F/A-18 jet fighters.
The deployment comes just one day after China wrapped up its own naval exercises in the South China Sea on Friday, CNN reported. War games involving its own aircraft carrier have unnerved neighbors with which it has long-running territorial disputes.
US aircraft carrier operations in the South China Sea are not unusual. Almost a year ago, the USS John C. Stennis led a similar cruise through the area. And the Vinson was in the South China Sea in 2015, just one of its 16 operations in the South China Sea in its 35-year history. The cruise of the Vinson in the South China Sea is the second of a high-profile US Navy vessel this month.
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