Maritime Deployment

Taiwan and Japan raised alarms on Friday after reports that China had sent an unusually large number of naval and coast guard vessels across East Asian waters. The deployment marks one of Beijing’s most extensive maritime operations in recent years, according to information reviewed by Reuters.

The activity, which involved more than one hundred ships at its peak, stretched across several strategic zones, from the Yellow Sea to the western Pacific. The scale of the movement drew regional attention because it extended far beyond the Taiwan Strait and included the contested Senkaku Islands area in the East China Sea.

Speaking …