Taking advantage of the U.S. Navy’s overstretched resources, China is operating an aircraft carrier and escort warships in a rather interesting area of the Philippine Sea.

Japan reported that the Shandong carrier and its escorts, including one of China’s excellent Type-055 air defense cruisers, were operating 261 miles south of Miyako-jima island on Monday. As shown on my annotated Google map below, this puts the flotilla close to Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan.