comment: Japan said on Monday it scrambled jet fighters and dispatched aircraft and warships over the past two weeks to keep tabs on China's Liaoning aircraft carrier and five warships that conducted naval manoeuvres and flight operations in the Pacific.
  Japan monitored the operations after the Chinese naval group, which included missile destroyers, sailed between the main Okinawa island and Miyakojima island into the Western Pacific from the East China Sea on Dec. 16, Japan's Ministry of Defence said in a press release.
  Before returning the same way on Sunday, the Chinese carrier conducted more than 300 take-offs and landings of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, added the ministry, which did not report any incursions into Japanese territorial waters or skies.