NATO and the Chinese threat
Tan's comments followed a report published late last year from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of which Britain is a major player, calling the rise of the Chinese military a threat to the alliance.
"China has an increasingly global strategic agenda, supported by its economic and military heft. It has proven its willingness to use force against its neighbors, as well as economic coercion and intimidatory diplomacy well beyond the Indo-Pacific region," the NATO report said.
"China is increasingly likely to project military power globally, including potentially in the Euro-Atlantic area."
Yet a British presence in the South China Sea is not without precedent. In 2018, the Royal Navy amphibious assault ship HMS Albion steamed closed to the Chinese-claimed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea in what Beijing called a "provocative action."
US Marines complete pre-flight checks in an F-35B jet aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth at sea on September 28, 2020.
