UK should try to have more than one friend

In what the Foreign Ministry described on Thursday as a "provocative" move that has infringed on China's sovereignty and violated Chinese and international laws, a British Royal Navy warship entered Chinese territorial waters around the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea on August 31, triggering strong complaints from China.

A British Navy spokesman claimed that the HMS Albion, a 22,000-ton amphibious warship on its way to Vietnam from Japan, was conducting a "freedom of navigation operation". It is not the first time a British warship has entered Chinese waters under this pretext.

And it is a pretext, as freedom of navigation in the South China Sea has never been a problem. Hundreds of thousands of commercial ships pass through the strategic waterway each year transporting an estimated $5 trillion worth of goods. Not a single one has found its freedom of navigation compromised.