Philippine Navy reports track the Liaoning carrier group turning northeast past Mindanao

Philippine Navy monitoring reports obtained by Bilyonaryo News Channel, a Manila business broadcaster, give the first detailed account of how Philippine ships tracked China's Liaoning carrier group through the southern Philippines last week. According to the reports, the group sailed past the Zamboanga Peninsula and through the Basilan Strait on 22 October, then turned northeast off the southern tip of Mindanao early on 23 October.

The formation consisted of the carrier Liaoning, the Type 055 large destroyers Wuxi and Anshan, and the Type 052D destroyer Huainan, according to both the broadcaster and the South China Morning Post. The Philippine military has not published the reports, and TaiwanDefence has not seen an official Philippine or Chinese statement on the latest position.

The reports placed the group about 15.2 nautical miles northwest of Talulu Point in Siocon, Zamboanga del Norte province, at 7.55 in the morning on 22 October, heading south at 14 knots. A little after 10 o'clock, the Naval Monitoring Station in Zamboanga picked the warships up on radar about 15.4 nautical miles southeast of the station. The broadcaster said the Chinese ships did not answer radio challenges from Philippine authorities, and a source told it the vessels had switched off their automatic identification transmitters, which broadcast a ship's identity and position.

Several Philippine vessels followed the formation. The navy ship BRP Diego Silang shadowed it through the day and BRP Emilio Jacinto sailed that morning to join the monitoring. By evening the group was about 54.8 nautical miles southwest of the naval monitoring station at Kalamansig in Sultan Kudarat, steaming southeast at about 15 knots, and the coast guard ship BRP Sarangani had joined the watch. At 9 in the evening it was still being tracked southwest of the station at Maitum.

The navy had expected the ships to leave its area of responsibility late that night. Instead, a report at 5 in the morning on 23 October placed them about 25 nautical miles east-southeast of Balut Island, off Sarangani in Davao Occidental province, moving northeast at 13.2 knots. BRP Diego Silang, BRP Artemio Ricarte and BRP Sarangani were then still monitoring the group, the broadcaster reported.

The South China Morning Post said on 25 October that the position put the carrier group beyond the first island chain, the line of islands running from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines. It said that if the group kept its northeastward course it could enter the Philippine Sea, where US and Japanese forces are holding the Keen Sword exercise from 19 to 29 October. The newspaper noted that the US Seventh Fleet had said on 22 October that the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt was operating there with warships from Japan, Australia, Canada and France.

According to the Post, Japan's defence ministry first tracked the group sailing through the Miyako Strait into the Pacific on 14 October, before it turned towards the South China Sea the next day. The newspaper said the route suggests an anticlockwise circuit around the Philippines, the reverse of the course the carrier followed during drills in October 2024, and that this is the group's second western Pacific deployment of the year.

Philippine sources added context on the voyage. A source quoted by the broadcaster said the same carrier group had also been monitored passing through the Basilan Strait in December 2025. Rear Admiral Jay Tarriela, the coast guard spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, told the channel that the deployment could be seen as a show of force amid friction between the Chinese embassy in Manila and Philippine officials, but he expected Beijing to describe it as innocent passage. He added that American and European warships also use Philippine sea lanes.

TaiwanDefence reported the Basilan Strait sighting on 24 October, when it rested on a USNI News account and social media posts and no government had confirmed it. The navy reports now describe Philippine ships following the carrier group for more than a day and record its turn back towards the open Pacific, where allied naval forces are concentrated for Keen Sword. Where the group goes next has not been publicly reported.