Taiwan tracks China's PLA carrier Liaoning as it turns south past the island towards the South China Sea

Taiwan's defence ministry says its military is tracking China's aircraft carrier Liaoning, which turned south past Taiwan towards the South China Sea with three escorts a day after flying fighters in the Pacific east of the island, Japan's Joint Staff said on Thursday, 15 October 2026. The change of course ends, for now, what had looked like an extended Western Pacific deployment by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy amid a week of PLA pressure around Taiwan.

According to the Joint Staff release, Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force confirmed on Wednesday that the Liaoning, hull number 16, was sailing with other Chinese warships about 250 km south of Ishigaki Island and counted about 10 launches and recoveries by carrier fighters and helicopters. On Thursday it confirmed that the carrier, two Renhai-class guided-missile destroyers, hull numbers 103 and 104, and a Luyang III-class destroyer, hull number 123, were heading for the South China Sea. The destroyer Yugiri shadowed the group.

United Daily News reported that Japanese tracking showed the ships turning southwest east of Miyako Island, passing waters southeast of Taiwan on Thursday and steering south of Orchid Island towards the Bashi Channel. BigMedia said the group was expected to cross the Luzon Strait westward. The Taiwanese reports named the escorts as the Type 055 destroyers Anshan and Wuxi and the Type 052D destroyer Huainan.

The Japanese update came hours after Taiwan's defence ministry briefed reporters. Colonel Pan Chun-kuang of the ministry's intelligence office said at the regular Thursday morning briefing that the carrier group had entered the Western Pacific, that the armed forces were tracking it throughout with joint surveillance assets, and that its movements had caused serious concern among neighbouring countries. He said the ministry would keep following the group and respond as needed.

China's defence ministry announced the deployment on 14 October and described it as routine training that is not aimed at any country or target, Taiwanese outlets reported. Beijing has not said publicly why the group left the Pacific after a single day of reported flight operations, and its description of the deployment could not be independently verified.

Chang Ching, a Taiwanese military analyst and senior research fellow at a Taipei strategic studies association, said, according to both outlets, that the abrupt turn was most likely a response to the forecast track of Typhoon Champi, which could have disrupted the planned training. He also said the route overlapped with waters east of Taiwan where China's coast guard has recently patrolled to contest maritime boundaries drawn by Japan and the Philippines, which he read as pressure on Tokyo and Manila.

Chang added that the group's crossing of the Luzon Strait appeared to run further north than in earlier transits, which he said was meant to test how Taiwan would respond. He linked that to the 1 October incident near Pratas Island, in which the Taiwanese coast guard cutter Yunlin used water cannon against Chinese vessels.

The carrier's brief stay east of Taiwan came alongside other PLA activity. BigMedia noted that Wednesday's flight operations took place roughly 280 km east of Chihhang Air Base in Taitung, where Taiwan's first F-16 Block 70 fighters arrived on 2 October, and that Japan scrambled fighters in response. On the same day the PLA staged a joint combat readiness patrol, and Taiwan's defence ministry counted 15 Chinese military aircraft, 13 of which crossed the Taiwan Strait median line, along with 10 PLA Navy ships and seven official ships around the island, China Times reported.