TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan's military has sent forces to keep watch on a&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;naval formation led by the aircraft&nbsp;carrier&nbsp;Shandong sailing through the&nbsp;sensitive&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;Strait,&nbsp;Taiwan's defence ministry said on Thursday.
The Shandong participated in&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;military drills around&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;in April, and again entered the Pacific last month.
The ministry said in a statement that the formation led by the Shandong entered the narrow&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;Strait&nbsp;on Wednesday afternoon sailing in a northerly direction but keeping to the&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;side of the waterway's median line, an unofficial barrier between the two.
China says the&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;Strait&nbsp;is not an international waterway and that it alone has sovereignty there, which both&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;and the United States dispute. The United States frequently sends warships through the&nbsp;strait, most recently last week, that time accompanied by a Canadian frigate.
As of Thursday morning, the&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;carrier&nbsp;group&nbsp;was continuing to sail northwards,&nbsp;Taiwan's defence ministry said.&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;has dispatched "appropriate" forces to keep watch, it added, without elaborating.
China's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Japan's defence ministry said on Monday that the Shandong and other naval ships had sailed to the South China Sea after conducting landing drills in the Pacific Ocean for nine days.
The Shandong, commissioned in 2019, also sailed through the&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;Strait&nbsp;in June.
Taiwan&nbsp;has repeatedly complained of&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;air force planes crossing the&nbsp;strait's median line.
China, which has never renounced the use of force to bring&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;under its control, has stepped up military activity near the democratically governed island, responding to what it calls "collusion" between&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;and the United States.
Taiwan's government strongly rejects Beijing's sovereignty claim.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Christopher Cushing &amp; Simon Cameron-Moore)

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Taiwan monitors Chinese carrier group in sensitive Taiwan Strait