Britain Is Right to Stand Up to China Over Freedom of Navigation

By sailing through the Spratly Islands, the UK is pushing back against China’s attempts to close off these waters – and standing up for freedom of navigation around the whole world.
By Bill Hayton

HMS Sutherland visits Japan in April.

This weekend the British defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, is likely to reveal that two British naval ships have taken part in ‘freedom of navigation’ operations in the South China Sea during the past month. 

This will highlight a significant revival of British interest in Asian security after four years in which no Royal Navy ship visited the Asia-Pacific.
Williamson is expected to tell the international security conference in Singapore known as the ‘Shangri La Dialogue’ that HMS Albion and HMS Sutherland sailed through parts of the South China Sea to which China is attempting to restrict access. 

HMS Albion navigated through the Spratly Islands in early May en route from Brunei to Japan. 

It is not yet clear where HMS Sutherland sailed but it has recently transited from Japan to Singapore through the same region.
Why is the UK taking an interest in the right of ships to sail through distant waters? 

The simple answer is that China is attempting to reverse hundreds of years of international consensus and close off access to the sea for military vessels. 

If this goes unchallenged, the world will be reverting to an era in which navies had to fight their way through blockades and when seaborne trade, the lifeblood of the global economy, was subject to the whims of coastal states. 

By sailing through the Spratly Islands, the UK is pushing back against China’s attempts to close off these waters – and standing up for freedom of navigation around the whole world.
What are the international rules about military ships sailing across seas? 

Put simply: they can sail almost anywhere they like. 

Both the UK and China have signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the document is clear. 

It was entirely legal for naval ships from any country to sail through even the most hotly disputed regions of the South China Sea.
Countries only ‘own’ the sea up to 12 nautical miles from their coast. 

That is one of the rules laid down by UNCLOS. 

But military vessels can still sail through this ‘territorial sea’ – right up to the coast if they choose – provided they do nothing to threaten ‘peace, good order or security’ or jeopardize anyone’s safety. 

Article 24 of UNCLOS clearly states: ‘The coastal State shall not hamper the innocent passage of foreign ships through the territorial sea.’ 

This right applies everywhere, including around rocks and reefs subject to sovereignty disputes.
These rights – and many others – were agreed by almost every country in the world in 1982, after nine years of negotiations. 

The concern of the British government – and others – is that China is trying to undermine an international agreement by unilaterally acting against its provisions. 

Ten years after it agreed to UNCLOS, China approved its 1992 ‘Law on the Territorial Sea’, which directly contradicts it.
The law states that ‘foreign ships for military purposes shall be subject to approval by the Government of the People’s Republic of China for entering the territorial sea of the People's Republic of China’. 

Then, when China ratified UNCLOS four years later, it asserted an opt-out from the ‘innocent passage’ provisions, requiring that a foreign state ‘obtain advance approval from or give prior notification … for the passage of its warships through the territorial sea’.
China’s position here is hypocritical.

It is making demands on other countries that it does not itself respect in other parts of the globe.
In July 2017, three Chinese naval vessels, including a Type-052D guided missile destroyer, sailed through the English Channel. 

The Dover Strait is 18 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point, meaning the flotilla had to sail through the territorial waters of either Britain or France. 

The Chinese navy made use of the right of ‘innocent passage’ to make the transit to the Baltic Sea in order to take part in war-fighting exercises with the Russian Navy. 

They sailed right past the UK’s naval bases in Plymouth and Portsmouth and nobody objected. This is what freedom of navigation is all about.
If the UK and France took the same position on the territorial sea that China takes, it could have blocked Chinese navy ships from passing through the English Channel. 

In Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore could use the same argument to block the Strait of Malacca to Chinese vessels. 

Is this the world that China wants to create – where states can unilaterally block waterways? 

The consequences for international peace will be dire.
This is particularly important because some Chinese officials have argued for even more restrictions on where ships can sail. 

For example, the sirector of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, a body jointly run by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the province of Hainan, has argued in a recent book that China has the ‘historic right’ to control navigation across almost the entirety of the South China Sea. 

This would completely undermine the ‘freedom of the seas’ currently enjoyed by every country.
Some of the media reaction to the news of the Royal Navy’s voyages contained an element of this Chinese attitude – as if the UK was somehow impinging on China’s rights simply by sailing through the South China Sea. 

The South China Sea does not belong to China any more than the English Channel belongs to England. 

Outside the territorial sea it belongs to no one at all.
This is a critical test for what has become known as the rules-based international order. 

Governments are supposed to stick to international agreements, not undermine them. 

By sailing through the South China Sea, wherever international law allows, HMS Albion and HMS Sutherland are showing that the British government supports the rules that have prevented superpower conflict for over 70 years. 

China should come forward and make it clear that it respects them as well.

Chinese Aggressions

UK sends 'strongest of signals' on free navigation in South China Sea
By Nicola Smith, Singapore

Gavin Williamson, UK defence secretary, on board the HMS Sutherland in Singapore

Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, said on Sunday that the UK has deployed three ships to the Asia-Pacific this year to send the “strongest of signals” on the importance of freedom of navigation and to keep up maximum pressure on North Korea.
His comments on board the Royal Navy’s HMS Sutherland docked in Singapore, come a day after General James Mattis, the US Secretary of Defence, accused China of “intimidation and coercion” in the South China Sea and warned there would be “consequences” if it continued.
The surge of British warships, which include the Sutherland - an anti-submarine frigate - the HMS Albion and HMS Argyll, is the first deployment of three vessels to the region in a generation.
Part of their mission is to conduct freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, where Beijing is continuing to alarm the international community with a build up of military fortifications in disputed waters.
“The reason that they are here and the reason that we are visiting is to send the strongest of signals. We believe that countries should play by the rules,” said Mr Williamson.
“This is even more important at a time when storm clouds are gathering and regional fears are rising, when more nations have nuclear and chemical weapons, not to mention the infringement of regional access, freedoms and security.”
But he declined to answer whether British ships would sail within 12 nautical miles of a disputed territory or artificial island built by the Chinese, as US ships have done.
At the end of May China’s military said it had dispatched warships to challenge two US Navy vessels that had passed within 12 nautical miles of the Paracel Islands, an archipelago in disputed waters off the coast of Vietnam. 

Gavin Williamson, UK defence secretary, tours the HMS Sutherland in Singapore

China, whose claim to the Paracel Islands is not recognised, argued that passage within 12 nautical miles constitutes a violation of the country’s territory under the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea.
Mr Williamson stressed that the UK, France and Australia had also been asserting their rights of passage in the region. 

“We’ve been sending a clear message to all that the freedom of navigation is absolutely critical,” he said.
Since it left UK shores in January, the Sutherland and its 220-strong crew have also engaged in surveillance operations to counter efforts by North Korea to bypass UN sanctions on banned commodities through illicit ship-to-ship transfers.
Mr Williamson said the UK was “very realistic about the challenges” that lay ahead with North Korea, but welcomed the prospect of the upcoming Singapore summit between Donald Trump, the US President and Kim Jong-un.
“The most important thing that we have is the fact that people are talking, people are trying to work to find a solution and the diplomatic lead that has been shown is one that I think we all welcome and we know is the right approach.”

Sina Delenda Est

China in military drills to ‘prepare for war’ as British frigate due to sail through contested South China Sea
By Neil Connor

HMS Sutherland

China's air force and navy have announced drills in the South China Sea to help develop preparedness for war, military leaders said, after the British defence secretary indicated the UK would sail a warship through the disputed region.
The Chinese military's latest fighters and bombers were involved in the exercises over the disputed region, as China continues to flex its muscles on the world stage.
The drills come after Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, gave a nationalist speech last week when he warned of Beijing's willingness to fight a "bloody battle" against its enemies.
They also come after Gavin Williamson, British Defence Secretary, said last month that the HMS Sutherland, an anti-submarine frigate, would sail through the South China Sea to assert freedom of navigation rights.

Defence secretary Gavin Williamson

The warship was expected to make the patrol during March. 

However, Chinese military officials said its recently announced drills were not aimed towards any country.
China's airforce carried out a "high-sea training mission" in the West Pacific and a joint combat patrol mission in the South China Sea, according to the airforce's social media account, which did not say when the drills took place.
The exercises tested China's latest military hardware, such as its H-6K bombers and Su-30 and Su-35 fighters.
Meanwhile, the PLA Navy also said last Friday it was planning to hold drills in the South China Sea to test the navy's "combat readiness".
The Air Force said on its social media account that the exercises were "rehearsals for future wars and are the most direct preparation for combat."
Meanwhile, Chen Liang, commander of a naval air force, said: "Pilots will all march ahead without fear, no matter how complicated the drill environments are and how unfamiliar the drill regions are.
"They always maintain mentally prepared for wars," he told the Chinese language website of the Global Times newspaper.
China claims nearly all of the strategic South China Sea, despite partial counter-claims from several south-east Asian nations including the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
Observers say China is developing its military capabilities by fortifying and building infrastructure on what were previously reefs and partially-submerged islets in the sea, where more than $5 trillion (£3.8 trillion) of trade passes every year.
The US Navy has conducted a series of freedom of navigation patrols in the region.
The latest, last Friday, saw a US Navy destroyer come within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island China has built in the South China Sea, sparking anger from Beijing.

Paper tiger: U.S. “innocent passages” in South China Sea

By Timothy Saviola, Nathan Swire 

The USS Hopper in November 2017 during a photo exercise in the Arabian Gulf. 

The United States drew significant criticism from China for its latest freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) in the South China Sea. 

In the days following the USS Hopper’s transit through the 12-nautical-mile zone around the Scarborough Shoal, editorials in China’s People’s Daily warned that the action was “reckless” and that “China must strengthen and speed up the building of its abilities” in the islands. 

The Global Times, another state-owned paper, noted that as China’s power grows, it is better able “to send more naval vessels as a response and can take steps like militarizing islands.” 

China’s actions have matched its words. 

It recently deployed advanced Su-35 and J-20 fighter aircraft to patrol the South China Sea and is upgrading the civil communications infrastructure on the islands it occupies. 

The Philippines-based Inquirer recently released a cache of new high resolution photos taken in late 2017 detailing the rapid addition of military infrastructure.
A U.S. official described the Hopper’s action as “innocent passage” rather than a FONOP, though “the message was the same.” 

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Articles 17–19, all nations have the right of “innocent passage” to continuously and expeditiously traverse other nations’ territorial seas. Though both China and the Philippines claim the Shoals, this reference to the Hopper’s activity as innocent passage seemed to implicitly accede that the shoals are entitled to a territorial sea: Warships need only declare innocent passage to traverse territorial seas, as opposed to the high seas. 

In the 2016 South China Sea arbitration, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruled that the shoals were not an island but a rock and therefore does not create a territorial sea or other maritime zones on its own.
The Philippines may be making it more difficult for other nations to protect freedom of navigation in the South China Sea by minimizing their claims to Scarborough Shoal and other features. 

The Philippine government has appeared to largely ignore China’s reclamation and militarization efforts during recent meetings: The two countries recently pledged cooperation on joint exploration for oil and gas in the region without touching on construction work or sovereignty in the South China Sea. 

However, the Philippine military recently deployed a TC-90 turboprop aircraft, donated by Japan, to monitor its exclusive economic zone and protect its maritime domain in the South China Sea.
Other major maritime powers have supported the United States’ position on freedom of navigation. 

In March, Britain plans to send a Royal Navy Type 23 frigate, the HMS Sutherland, on a transit through the South China Sea. 

British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson

Speaking on a recent trip to Australia, British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson noted that the United Kingdom “absolutely support(s) the U.S. approach” to FONOPS. 

The Royal Navy has left open whether the ship will sail within 12 nautical miles of any of the contested features—thus entering the contested territorial waters—or will simply pass through the sea in uncontested international waters. 

But Williamson noted that the “navy has a right” to sail through the South China Sea. 

The Global Times published an editorial dismissing the effort as an attempt by Britain to maintain its naval influence.
The U.S. Department of Defense chronicles these FONOPs in its Annual Freedom of Navigation Report for Fiscal Year 2017, describing the United States’ challenges to what it views as “Excessive Maritime Claims.” 

Activities in 2017 were similar to the scope of challenges in previous years.

The annual report identifies the geographic scope of FONOPs as well as the rights that the United States is asserting.

East China Sea
Natural gas condensate, an ultra-light oil, has spread into the waters of the East China Sea following the collision last month of the Iranian-owned tanker Sanchi with a cargo ship. 

The oil is endangering fisheries in hundreds of square miles of surrounding waters. 

China has taken the lead in dealing with the cleanup. 

Chinese firefighters attempted to extinguish the flames on the ship, but they were unable to rescue any of the 32 crew members from the oil tanker. 

Beijing has come under criticism for the slowness of its response to its disaster and for initial communications that seemed to understate the seriousness of the spill, which is now estimated at 111,000 metric tons, the largest oil spill since 1991.
The environmental effects on the surrounding waters, which include fisheries utilized by both China and Japan, could be severe and long-lasting. 

Oil slicks totaling up to 128 square miles were sighted in regions that include spawning beds for numerous sea creatures, as well as migration routes for marine mammals such as whales. 

The regions affected by the oil spills include both China’s and Japan’s exclusive economic zones. 

The Chinese government has responded by banning fishing in affected regions, while Japan has set up a special coordination unit in the prime minister’s office to deal with the oil spill, including investigating oil that has washed up on the shores of the Japanese Amami-Oshima islands. 

The type of natural gas condensate that has leaked from the Sanchi is highly toxic, but it does not coalesce into highly visible clumps like crude oil, making the extent of contamination hard to measure.
Whether the damage to the East China Sea’s marine ecosystem will have any effect on the maritime disputes in the region remains to be seen.

Robot Wars
On Feb. 10, China began construction on the Wanshan Marine Test Field in the city of Zhuhai in southern China. 

According to the government-controlled China Internet Information Center, the test field will be used as a research facility for unmanned ship technology. 

The approximately 300-square-mile facility will be the largest of its kind in the world and will be run as a joint program between the Zhuhzai government, the China Classification Society, the Wuhan University of Technology, and Oceanalpha, a company focused on developing unmanned surface vessels.
This is not China’s first foray into unmanned vessels. 

Over the past few months, the Chinese government has promoted the success of several of such vessels with military or law enforcement applications. 

These include the Tianxing-1—which China claims is the world’s fastest unmanned vessel, with a maximum speed of over 57 miles per hour—as well as the Huster-68, which successfully executed a patrol around the Songmushan Reservoir. 

The website of Shenzhen Huazhong University, which developed the Huster-68, states that the patrol vessel would aid China’s ability to manage water resources and achieve its ambitions of becoming a blue-water navy (according to a translation from the South China Morning Post). 

Wuhan University has been running a research program into the development of maritime drones since 2012.
These developments come as other navies around the world are developing their own maritime drones. 

In 2016, the British Royal Navy conducted “Unmanned Warrior” off the coast of Scotland and Wales, a mass demonstration of aerial, surface, and underwater maritime autonomous vessels. 

The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, has recently established its first Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Squadron, UUVRON 1, which will oversee existing vehicles and test new ones.

The United States
Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, has been nominated to be U.S. Ambassador to Australia. 

In testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, Harris took a hard line against China’s actions in the South China Sea—which he oversaw when leading Pacific Command—saying that China’s aggression in the region is “coordinated, methodical, and strategic, using their military and economic power to erode the free and open international order.”

Analysis and Commentary
In the National Interest, Gordon Chang criticizes as self-defeating the U.S. description of the transit near Scarborough Shoal as “innocent passage,” because it seems to be implying that China is the rightful sovereign of the shoal—even though the shoal itself is contested and the South China Sea arbitration found it did not confer a territorial sea.
Peter Jennings of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute applauds the pick of Harris as ambassador to Australia, saying “[t]he posting sends the clearest possible signal that the US is intent on strengthening its Asian alliances.”
In Japan Forward, Ryozo Kato, former Japanese Ambassador to the U.S., suggests that Japan should reopen the debate into whether it should pursue nuclear weapons in an age of continuous threat from North Korean missiles.

Chinese aggressions: Japan to bolster military base on island idyll

Island of Ishigaki is set to be the site for a substantial deployment of hardware and troops
By Kim Sengupta Ishigaki

A Japanese Self-Defence Forces' vehicle carrying units of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles leaves a port on Japan's southern island of Ishigaki, Okinawa prefecture.

If war is to break out, then Ishigaki would be the frontline. 

This is the island where Japan feels the most under threat from China and the place it will be installing missiles and troops amid clashes at sea, accusations and recriminations.
While international attention is on whether Games diplomacy in South Korea, with the presence of Kim Jong-un’s sister and henchmen present for the Winter Olympics, will lead to peace breaking out, tension between China and its neighbours have continued to grow.
Throughout last year, while Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un traded public insults, Beijing has been quietly bolstering its presence on the extraordinary chain of artificial isles it has been building in waters near and far taking advantage of what it calls "the strategic window of opportunity.”

Three airfields have been put into its seven bases in the disputed Spratly chain. 

There, and elsewhere, aerial photographs from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington reveal facilities awash with fortified shelters for warships, hangers for aircraft and radar, underground bunkers and missile emplacement positions.
The Chinese calls a series of archipelagos the "first island chain of defence” stretching in an arc from the South China Seas to Russia’s Kurils. 

For Japan the most vulnerable point is the Senkaku, to which Beijing has laid claims with surrounding isles, in particular Ishikagi 90 nautical miles away seen as the obvious targets.
Hundreds of fishing boats from China, escorted by coastguard ships, or, at times, warships have been in the seas leading, at times, driving back Japanese fishermen leading to clashes with Japanese coast guards. 

There has been a recent spate of incursions into airspace by Chinese warplanes and the appearance for the first time, a few weeks ago, of a nuclear attack submarine in these waters.
The Japanese government are now finalising the deployment of missiles batteries, anti-aircraft and anti-ship, radar installations and around 600 troops to Ishigaki.
Final details are likely to emerge next month. 

The Independent understands the surface to air missiles are likely include American made MIM-104 Patriots capable of taking down Chinese ballistic missiles with enemy vessels being targeted by SSM-1s which carry up to 500lbs of high-explosives and have range of over a hundred miles. 

There are future plans for a joint missile system involving Japan and Western Europe to be installed in a project involving the British, French and Italian MBDA and Mitsubishi Electrics.
China’s attempt at ocean hegemony has led to international reaction.
The US Defence Secretary General James Mattis stressed during a visit to Tokyo that the Washington is fully committed to backing Japan over the Senkakus. 

On a broader basis, the US has been sending warships through the China Seas to underline the right to freedom of navigation. 

The British Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson, has announced that HMS Sutherland, an anti-submarine ship, will be sailing through the South China Seas. 

The navies of America, India, Japan and Australia, will be holding naval manoeuvres.

HMS Sutherland

The tiny Senkakus were used in the past by a small Japanese community scratching a living out of bonito fishing and collecting albatross feathers. 

But they were then abandoned had been lying unpopulated for 78 years with basically scientific and geographical exploration groups the only visitors.
That these five islets and three barren rocks, with a total area of just seven kilometres, has become a potential flashpoint for a conflict between two modern industrialised states may be reminiscent of the Jorge Luis Borges’s view that Britain and Argentina going to war over the Falklands was “like two bald men fighting over a comb”.
In fact, there was little interest in the islands, apart from its fishing grounds, until an international survey in 1969 concluded large undersea deposits of oil and natural gas. 

The following year China began its claims of ownership.
The steady growth of Chinese presence in the seas, say the Japanese, has damaged the country’s fishing industry. 

Many of Beijing’s coast guard vessels are rebranded warships and the crews of Chinese 'fishing' boats are not fishermen at all, but peoples’ militia in disguise out to provoke. 

The confrontation means that Ishigaki fishermen like Yukihidi Higa can no longer catch the red snappers and groupers they used to off the Senkakus.
“Of course it has affected my earnings, I can no longer go there because of the Chinese and their big ships” he stated. 

“ But they are not just taking the fish, most of the coral from the sea has been stripped over the years, this is not good for marine life.”
The missile deployment comes at a time of great controversy in Japan as premier Shinzo Abe seeks to revise Japan’s post-Second World War pacifist constitution mandated, he holds, by a strong election victory. 

Last month, his cabinet approved an increase of 1.3 per cent in the annual military budget raising it to a record $ 45.8 billion for the year.
The military deployment is also going to be a key factor in Ishigaki’s municipal election next month. “This is certainly going to be part of my campaign. It is of course a very important topic and it needs to be discussed fully and the city will have to agree on providing the land ” said Yoshitaka Nakayama, the mayor.
“I am in favour of the deployment by our Self Defence Forces (SDF). We have seen the Chinese behave very aggressively, they are coming into our territorial waters, our fishermen have been prevented from fishing, our coastguards are having lots of problems, we have seen their planes fly into our airspace. Putting the missile systems here will act as a warning, it may stop Chinese aggression and a conflict in the future.”
The military was a key issue in the election in Nago, the capital of the Okinawa prefecture, last week in the defeat of the incumbent Mayor Susumu Inamine, by Taketoyo Toguchi, a candidate backed by Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
The Mayor had been an opponent of a US Marines base remaining in Okinawa. 

Mr Toguchi wanted them to stay and backed a plan by Washington and Tokyo to relocate it from a central urban area to one less populated.
For Yoshiyuki Toita, the secretary general of the Yaeyama Defence Association, the result showed “that attitudes are changing: people are beginning to see the dangers posed by China, which is following an expansionist policy. If the Japanese government and the SDF do nothing it will send the wrong message and the Chinese will feel even bolder.”
The defence associations across Japan are private groups which claim to be independent of government. 

Mr Toita, however, is a member of Mayor Nakayama’s campaign and will be spreading his message in support of the military deployment.

"This is about security. We have achieved good things here in Ishigaki and we must protect this community and Japan.”
Many are apprehensive, however, that the achievements may be put at risk by militarisation. Subtropical Ishigaki, with its mountains and mangrove forests, beaches and birdlife, has, somewhat surprisingly for a place not widely known, topped TripAdvisor’s “Destinations on the Rise” in the Travellers’ Choice awards.
“We have definitely seen a steady rise in tourism and this growth has taken place despite this place being so remote. The new airport has been a great plus factor” said Hiro Uehara, the owner of a bar and restaurant.-
Around a dozen coast guard ships are the current line of defence. 

Captain Kenichi Kikuchi, in command of the Taketomi, wanted to stress that they do their utmost to avoid confrontations. 

“We are careful , we are careful because we do not want to escalate matters and also have to mind that the Chinese Navy ships as well their coastguard vessels tend to be large” he said. 

“ But we also do our duty and deal with problems when they arise and make sure we are not outnumbered by the Chinese.”-
What will happen when the missiles and troops are deployed? 

 “That is a decision for the Japanese government and the Self Defence Forces. They will decide what is right. But it could become very interesting.”-

China Threat

HMS Sutherland, an anti-submarine frigate, would next month assert freedom of navigation rights through South China Sea
Agence France-Presse

British anti-submarine frigate HMS Sutherland is to sail warship through disputed waters of the South China Sea.

A British warship will sail from Australia through the disputed South China Seavnext month to assert freedom of navigation rights, the UK’s defence secretary said on Tuesday.
China claims nearly all of the resource-rich waterway and has been turning reefs and islets into islands and installing military facilities such as runways and equipment on them.
-
Photo shows Beijing’s militarisation of South China Sea

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said HMS Sutherland, an anti-submarine frigate, would arrive in Australia later this week.
“She’ll be sailing through the South China Sea (on the way home) and making it clear our navy has a right to do that,” he told The Australian newspaper after a two-day visit to Sydney and Canberra.
He would not say whether the frigate would sail within 12 nautical miles of a disputed territory or artificial island built by the Chinese, as US ships have done.
But he said: “We absolutely support the US approach on this, we very much support what the US has been doing.”
In January, Beijing said it had dispatched a warship to drive away a US missile destroyer which had “violated” its sovereignty by sailing close to a shoal in the sea.
Williamson said it was important that US allies such as Britain and Australia “assert our values” in the South China Sea, which is believed to hold vast oil and gas deposits and through which US $5tn in trade passes annually.
“World dynamics are shifting so greatly. The US can only concentrate on so many things at once,” he said.
“The US is looking for other countries to do more. This is a great opportunity for the UK and Australia to do more, to exercise leadership.”
China in December defended its construction on disputed islands, which are also claimed by Southeast Asian neighbours, as “normal” after a US think tank released new satellite images showing the deployment of radar and other equipment.
In a separate interview with Australia’s national broadcaster the ABC, Williamson warned of the need for vigilance to “any form of malign intent” from China, as it seeks to become a global superpower.
“Australia and Britain see China as a country of great opportunities, but we shouldn’t be blind to the ambition that China has and we’ve got to defend our national security interests,” he said.
“We’ve got to ensure that any form of malign intent is countered and we see increasing challenges – it’s not just from China, it’s from Russia, it’s from Iran – and we’ve got to be constantly making sure that our security measures, our critical national infrastructure is protected.”
Australia has been ratcheting up the rhetoric against China in recent months, with ties tested in December when parliament singled out Beijing as a focus of concern when it proposed laws on foreign interference.