“If the population of the English-speaking Commonwealths be added to that of the United States, with all that such cooperation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe and in science and in industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary, there will be an overwhelming assurance of security.”
So said Winston Churchill in his famous 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech addressing Soviet tyranny. In that same speech, the former wartime prime minister explained the crucial value of a “special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.”
That was 75 years ago. But translate “English-speaking Commonwealths” for “democratic nations,” and Churchill’s quote applies equally well today — this time, facing China’s authoritarian “balance of power.” As with Churchill’s prescription of “cooperation” against the Soviet Union, the best way to counter China’s imperial authoritarianism is to array democracies in restraint of it. These nations must show China that its challenge will be met.
But if Churchill’s principle sustains, a new complication lurks in its path: namely, the question of whether the “special relationship” between Britain and the U.S. is truly all that special.
We’re about to find out.
Much depends on a 12-mile test in the South China Sea — more specifically, whether or not Prime Minister Boris Johnson sends a British warship within 12 miles of artificial Chinese territory. The 12 miles matter because it delineates sovereign borders under international law.
A British aircraft carrier strike group led by HMS Queen Elizabeth will transit the South China Sea in August or early September. China has littered these waters with artificial islands. Beijing uses these militarized islands as a legal pretense to assert territorial claims over vast areas. Indeed, China now claims the near entirety of the South China Sea. Most of these waters are international, and other areas belong to nations such as Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
But China is determined. It threatens any who intrude above, into, or below these waters. It recently anchored a militia fleet within the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone. The intent is clear. China seeks to use its control to steal energy and fisheries resources. Ultimately, it intends to extract trade and political concessions from other nations wishing to transit these waters. Considering that these waters account for $3.5 trillion to $4 trillion in annual trade flows, China sees extraordinary leverage on the horizon.
Recognizing this great threat to a rules-based international order, the Trump administration significantly escalated the U.S. Navy’s so-called “freedom of navigation” operations within 12 miles of China’s fake territories. To its credit, the Biden administration has continued this activity rather than return to the Obama administration’s appeasement policy. Unfortunately, top U.S. allies have been reluctant to do the same.
The Philippines has a defense treaty with the U.S. but is led by a president who apparently prides himself on being Beijing’s most highly eccentric puppet. Australia and Japan have conducted military exercises, but not within the 12-mile limits. France has exercised its attack submarines alongside the U.S. Navy, but it has not conducted a surface 12-mile transit. Highly deferential to Beijing, Germany and New Zealand are no longer U.S. allies in the face of China. U.S. partners such as Singapore, India, and Vietnam are stepping up slowly but require encouragement.
That brings us back to HMS Queen Elizabeth.
Beijing understands that the big test of British resolve is whether the Royal Navy is willing to pass the 12-mile test. After all, that test is a metaphor for China’s influence within the international community. If Britain joins America in showing that China’s territorial imperialism is at once absurd and unlawful, it will make that effort multilateral. In turn, it will increase equal measures of diplomatic pressure and incentive on other democracies to follow in Britain’s footsteps. The Royal Navy will also chop up a central plank of Beijing’s propaganda narrative: its assertion that only the U.S. stands against its aggressive expansionism and its belief that other nations will choose trade, even if the price is to bow before Beijing.
Will Britain prove China wrong? Or will it show that America stands alone against China’s challenge to the international democratic order?
It’s not clear.
While Britain did recently reincarnate its naval legacy and send a warship within 12 miles of Russian-occupied Ukraine, it has been reluctant to offend China. Even as China conducts rampant cyberoffensives against Britain, Johnson remains focused on attracting Chinese investment. Skirting parliamentary skepticism of such deals, Johnson’s government recently allowed the sale of Britain’s largest semiconductor plant to China. Johnson knows that control over the global semiconductor trade is a top Chinese priority. He is likely gambling that his sale gift will earn Chinese payback via increased British imports and investment.
Regardless, much now depends on Britain. A 12-mile transit would provide physical proof of the special relationship’s defining essence: the willingness of allies to bear arms in common cause and against mortal threat. It will show Beijing that democracies are awakened.
Will America stand alone?
Let us hope Johnson channels his hero, Winston Churchill.
