US Air Force B-52 bombers have carried out training in the vicinity of the South China Sea and the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, the Air Force said yesterday, in what a Chinese newspaper linked to China's drills near Taiwan. Officials said the B-52s took off from Anderson Air Force Base on the US Pacific island of Guam and "transited to the vicinity of the South China Sea" on Tuesday. The exercise was reported in Taiwanese media this week, which speculated it could have been a warning China's stepped-up military presence around Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as it own.

US Air Force trains near South China Sea. (2018, April 28). The Philippine Star, p. 15.