The UK is ready to fight if conflict breaks out in the Pacific, British Secretary of State for Defence John Healey said on Sunday.
Healey made the remarks on board the British Royal Navy’s HMS Prince of Wales alongside Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who is also the Australian minister for defence, as the aircraft carrier berthed at the Port of Darwin in preparation for conducting joint military drills with the US and other allies, the Telegraph reported on Sunday.
Asked what the UK has been doing to help regional partners such as Taiwan defend against Chinese military threats, Healey said: “If we have to fight, as we have done in the past, Australia and the UK are nations that will fight together. We exercise together and by exercising together and being more ready to fight, we deter better together.”
Photo: Screen grab from UK Carrier Strike Group’s X account
Healey’s remarks were described by the Telegraph as “among the most robust from a British representative” on the UK’s possible engagement in a war in the Indo-Pacific region.
Healy said the UK would still prefer to resolve regional disputes “peacefully” and “diplomatically.”
“We secure peace through strength, and our strength comes from our allies,” he said.
London has previously refrained from commenting on whether it would intervene directly in potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait, although the British Royal Navy has deployed two vessels in the Indo-Pacific for long-term, regular patrols, the Telegraph reported.
The National Security Strategy published by the British government earlier this year said that “there is a particular risk of escalation around Taiwan.”
There are threats in the Indo-Pacific region, as Beijing has occupied several contested reefs in the region and continued to intimidate nearby countries, Healey said.
This is the first time in 30 years that a UK naval carrier group has docked in Australia and the first time a non-US aircraft carrier has played a role in a Talisman Sabre exercise, the newspaper said.
The ship is on a nine-month tour of the region, stopping in Singapore then Darwin before moving on to Tokyo, the report said, adding that it could transit the Taiwan Strait while on the way to Japan.
“We have a direct interest in the international rules, the freedom of the seas, the freedom of navigation, and the stability and security in the Indo-Pacific,” the report quoted Healey as saying regarding plans to transit the Strait.
On Friday, following the Australia-UK Ministerial Consultations in Sydney attended by Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong (黃英賢) and Marles, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy and Healey, they issued a joint statement saying the ministers “agreed on the critical importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
They also “called for the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues through dialogue and not through the threat or use of force or coercion, and reaffirmed their opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo.”
Thanking the ministers, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Australia and the UK are like-minded partners of Taiwan, and that Taiwan, as an indispensable member of the international community, would continue to collaborate with like-minded democratic partners to uphold the rules-based international order, and strengthen democracy, peace and prosperity in the region.
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