US aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan retreated from contested waters in China

Reports have emerged from Beijing that the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan has retreated from the contested waters after a belligerent China carries out a massive live-fire drill near Taiwan. USS Ronald Reagan, currently in West Pacific, was supposed to be escorting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's flight to Taiwan.

The carrier's retreat came as the People's Liberation Army PLA set a shooting range east of Taiwan, reported South China Morning Post. The report, quoting Chinese state-controlled CCTV, said the USS Ronald Reagan retreated a few hundred kilometers after the PLA set its shooting range east of the island for the first time.

The U.S. Navy never made any formal announcement regarding the warships and their escorts, despite the fact that the warships and their escorts were reportedly ensuring the safety of Pelosi. The 7th Fleet on Thursday maintained that the USS Ronald Reagan was conducting scheduled operations in the Philippine Sea in the Western Pacific, a 5.7 million square km 2.2 million square-mile stretch of ocean that includes waters southeast of Taiwan.

The US Navy Seventh Fleet said that the USS Ronald Reagan and her strike group are currently in the Philippine Sea, continuing normal, scheduled operations as part of her routine patrol in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group was ordered by the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to stay in the general area in order to monitor the situation, according to John Kirby, National Security Council spokesman at a White House briefing Thursday afternoon.

We will conduct standard air and sea transits through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks, consistent with our long-standing approach to defending the freedom of the seas. Kirby was quoted by the USNI News as having international law.

China sent its aircraft carrier to the Taiwan Strait to take part in the drills. The aircraft carrier group has one nuclear-powered submarine and will take part in its first carrier deterrence exercise. China has two operational carriers - the Liaoning and Shangdong - but it is not known which one is taking part in the drill.

The PLA's drills from Thursday to Sunday will feature the PLA's first aircraft carrier group deterrence exercise that will establish a maritime multidimensional combat system, according to a senior research fellow at the Naval Research Academy of the PLA, said that the PLA's drills from Thursday to Sunday will feature the PLA's first aircraft carrier group deterrence exercise. He said that a nuclear-powered submarine will accompany an aircraft carrier group in its mission.