Map Shows US Aircraft Carrier Near South China Sea Hotspots

A Navy supercarrier was recently tracked sailing near the most bitterly contested hotspots in a region China considers to be on its doorstep.

A Newsweek map shows the course the USS Theodore Roosevelt took through these waters in recent weeks, based on ship tracking data shared and satellite imagery.

The vessel first sailed east of self-ruled, China-claimed Taiwan in late February, through the strategic Bashi channel between Taiwan to the north and the Philippines to the south, and then southwestward into the restive South China Sea, Beijing-based think tank South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) wrote.

The nuclear-powered flattop's route appears to be a signal of support for the Manila, a U.S. defense treaty ally locked in an increasingly heated territorial dispute with Beijing over waters within the Philippine's internationally recognized exclusive economic zone.

Now-routine standoffs between the Philippine coast guard and China's coast guard and paramilitary maritime militia fleet have become the sites of dangerous maneuvers, collisions, and Chinese water cannon fire.

The Southeast Asian country's top envoy to the U.S. warned last week the two neighbors were one miscalculation away from "all hell breaking loose" in a confrontation that could trigger the nation's Mutual Defense Treaty with Washington.

Meanwhile, the vessel's relative proximity to Taiwan came amid a spike in tensions across Taiwan. Just days earlier, a Chinese fishing boat capsized as it was pursued by Taiwan's coast guard, leaving two of its occupants dead and infuriating Beijing.

"USS Theodore Roosevelt's recent operations last month were part of a regularly scheduled deployment and not in response to any one nation, or any specific events," a spokesperson for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command told Newsweek.

"The United States, like all Indo-Pacific nations, enjoys high-seas freedoms of navigation, overflight, and other internationally lawful uses of the sea in the region. Every day the U.S. Seventh Fleet operates with allies and partners, defending the rules-based international order and ensuring the Indo-Pacific remains free and open for all," she added.

The Chinese foreign ministry didn't immediately respond to Newsweek's written request for comment.

China claims sovereignty over democratic Taiwan and has vowed to someday bring it into the fold by any means necessary, despite the fact the Chinese Communist Party government in Beijing has never ruled there.

In addition to satellite data provided by geospatial developer Sentinel Hub, SCSPI said it had based its estimates of the Theodore Roosevelt's location east of Taiwan and southeast of Japan's Okinawa on the flight paths of a ship based C-2A Greyhound cargo plane.

The Navy's aging fleet of Greyhounds is temporarily serving as onboard delivery vehicles for the Theodore Roosevelt and other flattops homeported on the U.S. West coast.

This aircraft that usually fill this role, CMV-22B Ospreys, have been grounded since one of them crashed off the coast of Japan in December.

Last month, the Theodore Roosevelt joined fellow Nimitz-class carrier the Carl Vinson and Japanese maritime forces in multi-large deck exercises with the aim of boosting "combined readiness" between the allies.

According to U.S. Navy Institute News fleet tracking data, the Theodore Roosevelt was in the South China Sea as of Sunday.

The U.S.'s only forward-deployed carrier, the Ronald Reagan, is sitting in its home port of Yokosuka, Japan. Set to return to the U.S. for repairs later this year, it will be relieved by the George Washington later this year.

Update 3/6/24,11:58 a.m. ET: This story was updated with a comment from a spokesperson for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.