US Ally Tracks Chinese Warships Into Pacific

Japan’s Defense Ministry revealed on Monday that its forces had been tracking the movements of two Chinese warships, which spent more than a week patrolling waters frequented by the United States and its allies. The Chinese navy frigates Zhoushan and Jingzhou sailed out of the East China Sea on March 2 via the Miyako Strait, between Japan’s Miyako and Okinawa islands, before cruising from March 3-14 about 110 miles south of Ishikagi island, said the report by the Joint Staff of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. The naval deployment beyond the so-called first island chain—illustrated in Newsweek’s map—concluded on March 15, when…