China’s first aircraft carrier forms ‘evolving pattern’ of voyages in disputed Asian seas

NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan— China’s first aircraft carrier, heavily watched around East Asia as an emblem of Beijing’s growing naval power , had made at least six faraway deployments since its completion 14 years ago. It made another in October. So frequent are the Chinese aircraft carrier CNS Liaoning’s publicly visible voyages that military analysts presume that the People’s Liberation Army Navy has fixed a routine that will let the relatively aged carrier help train and equip the fleet’s two more modern ones. Still, the carrier group’s passages not far from Taiwan , Japan and the Philippines…