The French and British navies are planning to follow in the footsteps of the US Navy with their own wayfinding mission through the disputed South China Sea, specifically, into areas London and Paris argue are illegally claimed by Beijing.
A seaborne task force comprising French and British ships and naval aircraft will make its way through the South China Sea next week, French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parley said Sunday. The force will go “into certain areas” where the world's fastest growing navy — the People's Liberation Army-Navy — is expected to be present.
“At some point a stern voice intrudes into the transponder and tells us to sail away from supposedly ‘territorial waters.' But our commander then calmly replies the he will sail forth, because these, under international law, are indeed international waters,” Parley said Sunday.
The South China Sea is notable for the trillions of dollars' worth of commercial cargo passing through the waterway every year and for the possibility it contains large untapped oil and gas fields. A slew of nations in the region have overlapping claims on islets and sections of water, including China, Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.
France does not have any conflicting territorial claims in the waterway, said Parley, but it intends to contribute to a “rules-based” order in the South China Sea “on a regular basis with allies and…
