DEFENSE / A first: Taiwan spots new PLA aircraft carrier sailing in Taiwan Strait

Taipei, Dec. 17 (CNA) Taiwan's military has spotted China's new aircraft carrier, the Fujian, for the first time since it was commissioned making a transit through the Taiwan Strait and released a surveillance photograph of it.

In a statement Wednesday, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said it closely monitored the Fujian's passage through the waterway separating Taiwan and China on Tuesday, without providing any other details.

The photograph of Fujian showed no aircraft on its flight deck.

It was the first time Taiwan's military had seen it navigating through the Taiwan Strait since the vessel was commissioned in early November, according to the MND.

Defense Minister Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said at a legislative hearing Wednesday that his ministry believed the aircraft carrier did not have any aircraft on it because it was headed back to its manufacturer on Shanghai's Changxing Island to improve some of its flaws.

According to China's state-run media Xinhua News Agency, the Fujian entered service during a ceremony marking its handover to the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Navy in Hainan province on Nov. 5 that was presided over by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).

It is China's third aircraft carrier and China's first designed domestically and also the first capable of more advanced catapult-assisted take-offs -- a powerful launch system to rapidly accelerate fixed-wing planes for short-distance flight.

The deployment of a third aircraft carrier by the PLA is just another indicator of its military build-up and campaign to intimidate Taiwan and deter intervention in maneuvers in the Western Pacific and East and South China Seas.

As of the end of November, PLA aircraft, including jet fighters, had flown 4,935 sorties in Taiwan's vicinity, and the full year total was likely to surpass the previous record of 5,107 flown in 2024, up from 2,799 in 2022, according to CommonWealth Magazine figures based on publicly available MND data.

Of the sorties in 2025 through November, 3,467 had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, already topping the previous full year record of 3,074 set in 2024, signaling a further ratcheting up of pressure by the PLA on Taiwan, the data showed.

The median line of the strait was once considered a tacit boundary between Taiwan and China that was rarely breached by either side.

The campaign has continued unabated in December, with nine sorties of PLA warplanes detected near Taiwan from 6 a.m. Tuesday to 6 a.m. Wednesday, the MND said.

Five out of the nine sorties crossed the Taiwan Strait median line and entered the northern and southwestern sections of Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ).

An ADIZ is a self-declared area where a country claims the right to identify, locate and control approaching foreign aircraft, but is not part of its territorial airspace as defined by international law.