Warship will exercise its freedom of navigation in area where China’s assertive stance has inflamed tensions
Britain plans to send a warship to the disputed South China Sea next year to conduct freedom of navigation exercises – a move likely to anger Beijing.
Britain will increase its presence in the waters after sending fighter planes for joint exercises with Japan in the region last year, Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, said.
China claims most of the energy-rich sea where Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.
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“We hope to send a warship to the region next year. We have not finalised exactly where that deployment will take place but we won’ t be constrained by China from sailing through the South China Sea, ” Fallon said.
“We have the right of freedom of navigation and we will exercise it.”
The presence of a British vessel threatens to increase tensions, escalated by China’s naval build-up and its increasingly assertive stance.
The comments by Fallon on Thursday came after Britain’s foreign secretary Boris Johnson said the country’s two new aircraft carriers would be sent to the region.
Johnson did not specify where exactly the vessels would be sent once operational in 2020.
