Tom Rogan
They will not say that this was Boris Johnson's finest hour.
The British prime minister, America's nominally closest ally, isn't really that close to America.
That's the only credible assessment to make of Monday's ignominious departure of the country's HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier strike group from the South China Sea. As I noted on July 23, there was great consequence in what the strike group did or did not do before departing those waters.
After all, China makes outrageous claims to the near entirety of the South China Sea. Rich with energy and fishing stocks, these waters also see more than $3.5 trillion in annual trade flows. China gets the value. In turn, it has constructed a network of artificial islands in the South China Sea. They're not for vacation resorts, but rather for fortresses: China has manned its islands with missile, naval, and air bases. Beijing wants to use these forces to extract political concessions from all those transiting the waters (most of the world's nations). But the impact will be especially significant for regional states such as Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia. China is to the 2020s Pacific rim what Imperial Japan was to the 1930s Pacific rim.
America and Vietnam get it.
So, to challenge China's naked imperialist agenda, the U.S. Navy has conducted regular transits within 12 miles of China's artificial islands. Twelve miles signifies sovereign borders under international law. Unfortunately, no other nation has yet found the moral and strategic fortitude to join America.
That brings us back to Johnson.
At the most recent G-7 summit in June, Johnson pledged to strengthen the U.K.-U.S. special relationship. Johnson even went so far as to revitalize the Atlantic Charter. All of this reflects the prime minister's calculated effort to woo Biden. Johnson wants to retain influence with Washington and mitigate any economic or strategic weakening caused by Britain's separation from the European Union.
But it now appears that Johnson wants to have his cake and eat it. He'll talk a big game and make a big show, but when it comes to China, Johnson is Captain Kowtow.
The Queen Elizabeth strike group did not conduct a 12-mile transit. On Monday, the strike group quietly transited through the Luzon Strait between Taiwan and the Philippines. It is not clear whether the strike group did so in proximity to Taiwan. But considering its failure to conduct a 12-mile transit, that seems unlikely. Regardless, China has won a significant victory. Beijing's primary Western-focused propaganda outlet explicitly warned the British to avoid a 12-mile transit. The Chinese leadership knew that such a transit would show the world that its strategy of economic bribery and coercion had met its limit. Put simply, the world was waking up to the fact that more is at stake with Beijing than the question of short-term investment. Johnson got the message.
Yes, the British government will keep proclaiming its ridiculous mantra that Queen Elizabeth's deployment is "confident but not confrontational." But it's now clear how that mantra translates: "We're obviously not that confident because we defer to China's definition of what constitutes 'confrontational.'"
Johnson is happy to sell critical semiconductor infrastructure to Beijing, but where it matters most, he'll leave America on its own. Washington should and will take note.
There's one last chance for the prime minister to do the right thing. In December, the strike group could conduct a 12-mile transit on its return to Britain. But that will take something Johnson has been unwilling to show thus far — a touch of Churchillian spirit.
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