https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b...rier-v2gnwrr88
Britain set to confront China with new aircraft carrier
HMS Queen Elizabeth may be based in Far East
Military chiefs have drawn up plans to base one of Britain’s new aircraft carriers in the Far East to play a part in countering an increasingly assertive China, The Times can reveal......
Defence chiefs have drawn up proposals to base one of the carriers in the Indo-Pacific region. One option is to invite allies with F-35s, such as the United States and potentially Japan, to contribute airpower to a carrier strike group. A wider array of partners, including Australia and Canada, could be invited to provide escort warships or submarines to complete the flotilla.
A source said: “One carrier will support Nato in the North Atlantic. Where else are you going to put the other? On the main trade routes and to counter the emerging threat of China. It would be an allied task group, a British carrier, but a coalition of the willing. That’s how it’s being looked at.”.....
Vice-Admiral Jerry Kyd, the fleet commander, served notice yesterday that the Royal Navy was “going to be coming back to the Indo-Pacific” region. “Our ambition is to be absolutely persistent and forward-based there, maybe with a carrier strike group, or maybe not. We’ll see,” he said,
He raised the prospect of Britain’s F-35 stealth fighter jets disembarking in the region, adding that they could be sustained “through our US allies and through the hub in Japan”. A British aircraft carrier could take them out there and bring them home again, he told a webinar hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank. Another option is to base a smaller Royal Navy warship in the region, such as a frigate.
The plans are being examined as part of a review into foreign, defence and security policy, which is set to be completed this autumn. Insiders say that there is a “maritime orientation” to the defence part of
the review......
Air Marshal Gerry Mayhew, deputy commander operations, suggested that allies in the region would welcome a larger British military presence. He said that alongside western partners, “colleagues in the Far East through the ‘five powers’ defence agreements and with Japan, and a whole host of others are really excited by the air and maritime opportunities that we bring.”......
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “HMS Queen Elizabethand its escorts will offer the United Kingdom a world-class sovereign carrier strike capability. No decision has been made on HMS Queen Elizabeth’s deployment.”