A United State Navy aircraft carrier has reportedly entered the Western Pacific Ocean this week to fill the "carrier gap" left by its sister ship, which is on station in the Middle East amid rapidly rising tension in the region.
Meanwhile in China, the country's third and the most advanced "flat-top" has concluded its third sea trial and returned to port. And in northern Australia, an aircraft carrier sent by NATO member Italy will soon end its visit there.
Aircraft carriers are major platforms used by countries to project sea power in support of national interests and foreign policy in their immediate region and beyond. The U.S. has the most aircraft carriers in the world with 11 in service, and China ranks second with three carriers launched.
Newsweek's weekly update maps U.S. and Chinese aircraft carrier movements in the strategic Indo-Pacific region. As of August 2, the locations of at least nine ships were publicly available via military disclosures or open-source satellite imagery.
U.S. Navy
USS Carl Vinson: Central Pacific Ocean
The Carl Vinson returned to Naval Station Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on Monday following the Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, naval exercise, which officially ended on Thursday.
USNI News, run by the U.S. Naval Institute, said the carrier was now available for tasking after RIMPAC.
Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California, is the Vinson's home port.
USS Abraham Lincoln: Western Pacific Ocean
The Abraham Lincoln was underway in the U.S. Seventh Fleet's area of operations and headed westward on a scheduled Pacific deployment on Monday, according to USNI News.
Photos published by the Navy on Wednesday showed the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS O'Kane, part of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, underway in the Western Pacific.
The last carrier stationed in the Western Pacific Ocean, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, was in the Persian Gulf on Wednesday along with six destroyers, according to The Washington Post.
USS Nimitz: Eastern Pacific Ocean
The lead ship of the 100,000-ton Nimitz-class supercarriers returned to Naval Air Station North Island on Tuesday and departed the following day, according to ship spotters.
Photos provided by the Navy showed the Nimitz was underway in the U.S. Third Fleet's area of operations as of Wednesday, off the coast of California.
USS George Washington and USS Ronald Reagan: San Diego, California
As of Monday, both carriers continued their hull swap while moored pierside at Naval Air Station North Island. The George Washington will replace the Ronald Reagan as the forward-deployed U.S. Naval Forces Japan aircraft carrier at Yokosuka naval base.
People's Liberation Army Navy
CNS Shandong: South China Sea
The Shandong returned to the South China Sea on July 18 following a 10-day deployment in the Philippine Sea, beyond the first island chain.
Open-source satellite imagery captured ships sailing in formation on Thursday in waters southeast of Hainan, its home port, in an area designated this week as no-sail and no-fly zones on account of military exercises, according to notifications issued by the Chinese government.
The large exercise area north of the disputed Paracel Islands, an archipelago controlled by China but claimed by neighboring Vietnam and others, appeared to include Woody Island, or Yongxing, the Chinese military's main base of operations in the contested waters.
CNS Fujian: Shanghai
The Fujian, the Chinese navy's most advanced aircraft carrier, returned to Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai on July 28 following almost one month at sea for various systems tests.
Additionally, social media photos this week showed fighter jet mockups placed on warship's flight deck, suggesting that arresting gears were installed, although no visible landing or tire marks were present after the recent sea trial.
At its monthly press conference on July 25, the Chinese Defense Ministry said follow-up tests of the new ship would be carried out based on the process of its construction. That is, it could be several years until the Fujian—named for the province directly opposite Taiwan—enters service.
CNS Liaoning: Qingdao, Shandong
The country's first operational aircraft carrier, the Soviet-built Liaoning, was still pierside on Thursday at its home base in Qingdao, according to satellite images. Qingdao is a Chinese port city in Shandong province facing the Yellow Sea, the northeastern section of the East China Sea.
Italian Navy
ITS Cavour: Australia
Photos published by the U.S. Marine Corps showed the Italian carrier Cavour conducting flight operations on July 25 with aircraft assigned to the U.S. Marine Rotational Force while underway in the Timor Sea, off Australia's Northern Territory.
The carrier is visiting Australia to take part in the multilateral exercise Pitch Black, which was hosted by the Royal Australian Air Force and concluded on Friday.
The NATO warship was scheduled to stay in Darwin until August 5. The Naval News website reported in June that the Cavour is expected to head to the Central Pacific Ocean to operate with the U.S. military before calling in Japan.
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