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Official: 2 U.S. carriers to stay near Taiwan

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Two U.S. aircraft carriers will remain deployed in waters near Taiwan to ensure a smooth transition of government in Taipei amid heightened regional tensions, Taiwan Defense Minister Michael Tsai said Wednesday.

Tsai told a parliamentary session that the Kitty Hawk and Nimitz will stay in the “Western Pacific” near Taiwan after deploying here since shortly before the island’s March 22 presidential election.

“The deployments have their strategic significance,” Tsai told lawmakers, citing what he said was the U.S. Pacific Command’s position that “the period between March 22 and May 20 is an uncertain time for the Taiwan Strait.”

Taiwan’s President-elect Ma Ying-jeou will be inaugurated May 20.

Although Ma campaigned largely on vows to improve cross-strait ties, presidential elections and transitions of government on Taiwan are traditionally sensitive periods in the strait.

China, which claims Taiwan as its own, sometimes resorts to saber-rattling when the self-ruled island exercises its democratic autonomy.

Central to Beijing’s geopolitical strategy is to eventually bring Taipei under its political fold, by force if necessary.

Asked by lawmakers Wednesday if the deployments’ objective “is to deter China or to ensure a smooth transition of government in Taiwan,” Tsai replied, “Both.”

For military affairs expert Andrei Chang, “the deployments are a message to both Taiwan and China: ‘Don’t provoke each other,’” said Chang, who runs Kanwa Defense Review, a military affairs magazine.

Pro-independence rhetoric from Taipei typically invites a threatening posture by Beijing, which in turn unnerves Washington, Taipei’s chief security guarantor.

Although nominally committed to Taipei’s defense, Washington seeks to rein in independence moves by Taipei to head off a cross-strait conflict that could involve the U.S. military.

In 1996, China fired unarmed missiles near Taiwan in exercises meant to curb independence rhetoric by then-President Lee Teng-hui and intimidate voters on the eve of the island’s presidential election that year.

The maneuvers led to a deployment of the Kitty Hawk in the strait and a standoff between U.S. naval forces and China’s People’s Liberation Army.

China’s threatening exercises quickly stopped and the Kitty Hawk later left the strait without further incident.

The latest deployments, however, appear larger, with opposition Nationalist Party lawmakers Wednesday asking Tsai whether patrols by both the Nimitz and Kitty Hawk “constituted unusual naval activity in regional waters.”

According to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, the Kitty Hawk left its port in Japan just days before Taiwan’s election, while the U.S. Pacific Command said the Nimitz has been in the Western Pacific since January.

Defending the strait amid Taipei’s latest government transition is likely the Kitty Hawk’s last mission. The carrier George Washington left its U.S. port earlier this week to eventually replace the aging Kitty Hawk as the chief supercarrier in the Asia Pacific region.

Both the Kitty Hawk and Nimitz are expected to patrol waters near Taiwan until after Ma takes office.

The Nimitz is patrolling with its entire strike group, which includes an array of destroyers, submarines and other vessels, while the Kitty Hawk is patrolling with just one destroyer, a U.S. Pacific Command spokesman said last month.