Is Britain heading for war over Taiwan?

It is billed as a once-in-a-generation review of Britain’s foreign policy and defence strategies. ‘Global Britain in a Competitive Age’, Boris Johnson’s ‘new chapter’ for Britain, identifies two main adversaries: Russia — an ‘acute threat’ — and China — a ‘systemic competitor’. And while it nods at a geopolitical ‘tilt’ towards the Indo-Pacific, the more hawkish Tory MPs are disappointed, thinking Beijing should have also counted as a threat. They should perhaps be careful what they wish for.

The Prime Minister is sending more than harsh words in China’s direction. In two months’ time, the Royal Navy will send a battle fleet to Asia for the first time since the start of the Korean War in 1950. One of the navy’s two new £6 billion aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, will head up an allied task force in what’s described as a British ‘pivot’ to the Indo-Pacific with ‘a greater and more persistent presence’ there ‘than any other European country’.

The extent of Britain’s new naval mission is still unspecified but as in the Pacific War, America will be providing logistics. Joint naval exercises may also take place with Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. Further operations are expected with the United States and Japanese navies. They will inevitably sail through the South China Sea, which China illegally claims as its very own pond. Protests from China are sure to follow.

The British naval expedition may well also venture into the East China Sea on its mooted exercises, with the Royal Navy sailing through the Strait of Taiwan. Astonishingly, Taiwan isn’t mentioned in the review, but if China seeks to invade its neighbour in the next few years — a very real possibility — the question is whether America and Britain would come to its aid. The less likely the West is to help, the more likely China is to push its luck.