South China Sea: Navy aims to ramp up China fight
BRITAIN’S new super-carrier should form the centre of a multinational taskforce to challenge Beijing’s stranglehold of the South China Sea, defence sources said last night.
By MARCO GIANNANGELI, EXCLUSIVE
Express.co.uk
Sun, Feb 10, 2019
It follows a new report by the Henry Jackson Society think tank, backed by senior Admirals, which includes the move as part of a seven-point plan to ensure China holds no control over the vital trade route. More than twelve percent of British trade passes through the South China Sea each year, worth £92 billion. In September Britain was accused of “provocation” by Beijing after HMS Albion, an amphibious assault ship which usually carries Royal Marines, was deployed to the South China Sea on a ‘freedom of Navigation” exercise.
The Royal Navy vessel was briefly chased by a Chinese warship and her decks buzzed by low flying Chinese fighter jets as she sailed near the Parcel islands, controlled by China but claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.
The new plan, if adopted, would satisfy US requests for naval support in the region with British vessels, joined by those from Australia, the US and neighbouring countries.
The report’s recommendations include the creation of a Pacific Nato “to deter attacks on smaller countries that seek to uphold the Law of the Sea”; for the Royal Navy to have a permanent facility in Singapore and/or Brunei and investment in new capabilities “to circumvent potential opponents’ increasingly sophisticated anti-access and area-denial systems.”
But it is the multinational task force idea which is proving popular with Royal Navy planners.
Last year’s National Security Review reaffirmed the “Global Britain” aim to champion the world’s rules-based system and to “respond robustly to harm the UK and destabilise the world order”.
Speaking last night one senior defence source said: “As far as we’re concerned, this chimes precisely with HMG’s stated policy on being robust with Freedom of Navigation exercises in the South China Sea.
“The QE will be our proudest naval asset – unmatched by any other country – and part off its remit, once it is operational in 2020, will of course be to represent Global Britain. Being at the centre of a multinational taskforce is one way of achieving this whilst ensuring that a vital trade route remains open and territorial waters are respected.”
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