Map Shows US and China’s Aircraft Carriers in Pacific This Week

The United States has deployed the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson to the Philippine Sea, a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean, as China conducted military exercises near Taiwan earlier this week. All three of China’s aircraft carriers remained pierside, including two “flattops” that are operational but did not join the war games near Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory. A Japanese helicopter destroyer, the Kaga, which is undergoing conversion into the country’s first aircraft carrier since World War II, returned to Japan following trials at sea with fighter jets off the U.S. West Coast and a…