US-China relations: American nuclear-capable stealth bombers deployed to Indian Ocean airbase

[soryang]

US-China relations: American nuclear-capable stealth bombers deployed to Indian Ocean airbase
By Liu Zhen Updated : 2020-08-14 18:15

The US bomber deployment comes amid a period of intense military maneuvering by the People's Liberation Army. AFP
The US Air Force has deployed three B-2 stealth bombers to the tiny island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for the first time since 2016, as China continues to ramp up its live-fire military exercises.

The American B-2A nuclear-capable Spirit bombers took off on Tuesday from the Whiteman air force base in Missouri, flew across northern Australia and on to the militarised atoll that forms part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The aircraft were refuelled in the air several times, according to information from the US military.

The last time the bombers were deployed to Diego Garcia, which lies about 1,200km (745 miles) south of the Maldives, was four years ago during a period of tension in the South China Sea after an international arbitration tribunal rejected Beijing's claims to the disputed waters.

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/world/2020/08/672_294419.html

Link to tweet

AircraftSpots has a couple of oher interesting tweets, Aug. 15, USS Reagan operating near the Pratas Islands in the South China Sea, and a Russian elint IL-20 collecting in the Sea of Japan. A retweet of an Aug 12 report of Chinese H-6j bombers at Woody Island in the Paracels.