This is a direct kow-tow to the PRC/CCP.
Double and treble games going on here ...... The Chicoms, through a semi-official regime periodical, told us last year to get the hell out of WestPac, it's a Chinese lake.
Barky responded to various other threats by deploying the GW to the Yellow Sea and three Tridents to surface and make conspicuous port calls simultaneously in three WestPac and Indian Ocean ports of call.
Just recently we responded to Chinese challenges to Admiralty law (claiming the South China Sea as a territorial sea and exclusive economic zone) by deliberately transiting another CBG through the area.
Now the Regime proposes to decomm that selfsame GW. What's next, decommissioning the Tridents?