Opinion | Why British navy’s South China Sea trip only shows fealty to US

When I first heard that Britain was deploying its new aircraft carrier to the South China Sea, I assumed I was having a “senior moment” – one of those episodes where a retired person mixes up dates, names and other key facts. Had I got confused with the 1960s?

But no, there it was: the HMS Queen Elizabeth, costing more than £6.2 billion (US$8.8 billion) to build and millions more to operate, was about to leave Portsmouth Harbour for its first extensive overseas voyage, to the Indian and Pacific oceans.

I thought it best to check my memory against the historical record. It was in 1967 that the then-Labour government concluded that for a medium-sized power such as the United Kingdom had become, the economy simply could not support an extensive military presence “east of Suez”. The large Singapore naval base was handed over. British priorities thereafter were centred on Europe and membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Deployment by any navy of an aircraft carrier is an awesome projection of power because of its ability to launch its strike force to hit targets long distances away. Once recovered, refuelled and rearmed, they can be launched again. The UK and China each have two of these powerful vessels while the United States has 11.