Britain and Japan on Wednesday expressed “serious concerns” over the situation in the East and South China Seas and their common opposition to the Chinese regime’s unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force. At a virtual meeting with their Japanese counterparts Toshimitsu Motegi and Nobuo Kishi, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab discussed the planned deployment of the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to the Indo-Pacific region later this year. In a joint statement, the four ministers agreed that Japan and the UK are “global strategic partners who share a fundamental commitment to core values of freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law and are each other’s closest security partners in Europe and Asia respectively.” They confirmed their commitment to maintaining regional security and upholding the rules-based international order, as well as their opposition to “attempts to coerce others in the …