1. Pursue integrated cooperation with the ‘Indo-Pacific Four’: Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea
Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea are the Indo-Pacific nations most aligned with UK interests and values across the security, economic and political realms. These four countries are fellow democracies and middle powers. Like the UK, they have advanced technological capabilities and are committed to maintaining open international trade and a functioning multilateral system. As NATO’s designated partners in the Indo-Pacific, they are known as the ‘Indo-Pacific Four’ and are lynchpins of the US alliance system in the region.
However, with the US set to maintain an ‘America First’ course for at least the duration of the Trump presidency and potentially beyond, US allies that want a functioning global order will need to intensify their joint efforts to uphold and refresh the institutions and principles that are under assault. One of the problems with this is that Indo-Pacific structures and institutions for addressing common problems are nascent or limited. Moreover, where the US has alliances in the region, these tend to be more bilateral than multilateral.
As the US calls for allies around the world to take more responsibility for their own security (a message that predated and will outlast the Trump presidency), the UK needs to bolster its own direct ties with Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea; it also needs to make more expansive use of and, where necessary, reinforce regional networks involving these four countries.
Responding to a more assertive China is a part of this picture. China has ratcheted up its pressure on US Indo-Pacific allies over recent years, targeting Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea through economic coercion, cyberattacks, interference in democratic processes and, in some cases, direct military intimidation. But while all four countries have been considering some degree of ‘de-risking’ from Beijing – in the sense of reducing their economic exposure to China – all four accept that China will remain one of their most important trade and investment partners for years to come. The UK should invest more in convening discussions among these allies about how to navigate and shape a world in which China is ever more powerful and assertive internationally, and in which (from US allies’ perspectives) the US is a less reliable partner. Discussions could usefully include sharing experiences in dealing with both China and the US, and assessing how the Communist Party of China (CPC) might behave in Europe or elsewhere as it seeks to exert influence more widely.
The UK and, in varying permutations, members of the Indo-Pacific Four sit together in an overlapping series of established and emerging international organizations and cooperation initiatives. For example, all five countries are dialogue partners of ASEAN. Australia, Japan, South Korea and the UK are G20 members. South Korea has considered applying to join the other four countries in the CPTPP. On the security front, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea are deepening their cooperation with NATO, after their leaders participated in a NATO summit for the first time in 2022. Australia and New Zealand are part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing and security partnership with the UK, the US and Canada. There have been talks about Japan, New Zealand and South Korea cooperating with Australia, the UK and the US on the development of advanced military technologies under Pillar Two of the AUKUS agreement (the first pillar of which will see Australia develop nuclear-powered submarines with British and US support). Japan and the UK are also working with Italy to develop a next-generation fighter aircraft under the Global Combat Air Programme.
The UK should work with the Indo-Pacific Four to develop a broader shared strategic agenda on regional and global issues, particularly in relation to security and trade.
Rather than launch new initiatives or formal agreements, the UK should use these existing platforms to expand the range and depth of its cooperation on a case-by-case basis. At the same time, the UK should work with the Indo-Pacific Four to develop a broader shared strategic agenda on regional and global issues, particularly in relation to security and trade. One option would be to set up a ‘Quintet’ meeting between ministers or senior officials from the UK and the Indo-Pacific Four. This should happen outside of NATO to ensure a wider agenda beyond defence alone, with one possibility being on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, where all five countries are present as dialogue partners. This would build on a growing number of strategic conversations among the Indo-Pacific Four. In 2024, the UK and Japan agreed to establish a regular ‘2+2’ meeting of economic ministers, while the UK and South Korea have also recently set up a ‘2+2’ meeting of foreign and defence ministers. But while the establishment of these forums should be welcomed, the challenge, as one senior Japanese official put it, will be ‘how to develop a meaningful agenda with enough concrete outcomes that we can sustain these meetings’.
For such discussions to prove useful and enduring, top–down political will and bottom–up energy and material progress are needed. With a high turnover of governing parties or leaders in all five democracies, it is dangerous to rely on leader-to-leader contact to drive long-term relationships. The UK has deep and trusted relationships with Australia and New Zealand, but even with these partners some joint projects need defending and shoring up. In particular there is AUKUS, intended to deliver nuclear-powered submarines for Australia and the UK by the 2040s. The first phase of the project is for the US to sell Australia three to five Virginia-class submarines by the early 2030s, before the three countries then develop new vessels for future deployment. However, with submarine procurement for the US’s own use running behind targets, there are concerns the project could falter at this first hurdle. People in President Trump’s entourage have also sent mixed signals about the resolve of the US government to maintain the programme – a review of US involvement was launched in June 2025. For the UK, AUKUS is expected to deliver jobs and a new submarine capability. Indeed, the government’s recent Strategic Defence Review signalled an intention to accelerate production of the planned submarines. But the UK also needs a political strategy both for maintaining AUKUS’s momentum at home and for continuing to champion Britain’s role in the programme as strategically advantageous to the US and Australia.
The appointment of a government special representative for AUKUS is a good start, but clearer progress and milestones are required. The latter are needed to ensure adequate funding and clarity of purpose for Pillar Two of the programme, under which the three countries intend to share and jointly develop cutting-edge technologies. Since the deal’s launch in 2021, some progress has been made on identifying priorities for Pillar Two, including on quantum technology, undersea warfare systems and hypersonic weapons technology, but dedicated official capacity, funding and links to wider research priorities have been lacking; all are needed to maintain progress.
At the same time, the UK has made headway in deepening its partnerships with Japan and South Korea, which lack the linguistic, historic and cultural links that underpin the UK’s relationships with Australia and New Zealand. The enhanced bilateral partnerships agreed by the previous British government with Japan and South Korea respectively in 2023 laid out solid foundations and high ambitions. But officials and political leaders will need to work hard to build trust and develop the ‘muscle memory’, so to speak, of cooperation given that both Japan and South Korea have very different bureaucratic and political cultures from the UK. The UK government can accelerate this mutual familiarization process through meetings of senior officials and ministers on the sidelines of the many forums where all five countries are present. The UK should also consider trilateral dialogue with Japan and South Korea, which have in recent years boosted their own bilateral cooperation with each other despite the historical grievances that still linger between them. Both nations are exposed by recent shifts in policy and rhetoric from the US, having built early-stage partnerships and developed shared goals with the Biden administration, particularly on economic security and supply-chain resilience.
2. Focus on trade, climate and maritime security in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most dynamic and cohesive emerging-market regions, and the UK has an opportunity to develop long-term partnerships there that support stability, resilience and economic prosperity. Together, the 10 member states of ASEAN are home to more than 670 million inhabitants and constitute the world’s fifth biggest economy. Southeast Asia’s geographical location, adjacent to China and spanning busy global shipping routes, also places the region at the heart of global supply chains for everything from apparel to electronics to semiconductors. At the same time, Southeast Asia is a crucible of competition between the US and China, and the centre of escalating disputes about territorial claims in the South China Sea. The region is also highly exposed to the risks associated with possible conflict over Taiwan, given that hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians live and work on the island.
Although ASEAN has been criticized for its internal divisions and failure to take a united stance against assertive Chinese actions, it remains one of the world’s most effective regional bodies. In some respects ASEAN is the anchor for Asia’s broader economic, diplomatic and security architecture. It convenes Asia’s major diplomatic and security forums, including the leader-level East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus and the ASEAN Regional Forum. It also serves as the foundation for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the world’s largest free-trade agreement, which connects ASEAN economies with Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
Britain’s interactions with ASEAN are set to become more important in the coming years. The organization had long maintained a moratorium on admitting new dialogue partners, but in 2021 it accepted the UK as such a partner – a sign, perhaps, that Southeast Asian governments see Britain as a valuable collaborator and want it to play a bigger role in the region. Yet many remain sceptical about the UK’s long-term commitment to Southeast Asia, having seen interest from Western governments – including the UK, the US and Australia – rise and fall over the decades. As US foreign policy becomes more unpredictable under Trump, the UK has an opportunity to show that it can be relied upon.
But the UK needs to intensify its commitments in a nimble way that makes best use of constrained resources and reflects the realities and limitations of ASEAN as an organization. UK ministers must show up at relevant annual ASEAN meetings; they will also need to understand that the organization moves at a slow, bureaucratic pace, and that it makes lowest-common-denominator decisions based on consensus. Yet while duly respecting the symbolism of engaging with ASEAN, the UK also has room to develop its diplomacy creatively through bilateral and minilateral relationships. Traditionally, the UK has looked at Southeast Asia through the lens of Britain’s former colonies or protectorates in the region: Brunei, Malaysia, Myanmar and Singapore (although Myanmar’s deeply troubled domestic politics and its ongoing civil wars have limited scope for substantial UK engagement). Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore remain members of the Commonwealth. Malaysia and Singapore, alongside Australia and New Zealand, are part of the Five Power Defence Arrangements, agreed in 1971 to promote defence cooperation and joint exercises between these Commonwealth members and the UK. The UK’s deepening ASEAN partnership and accession to the CPTPP also offer a potentially strong platform for expanding relationships and developing new economic opportunities in Southeast Asia. Four Southeast Asian nations – Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam – are members of the CPTPP, and Indonesia has applied to join too.
The UK needs to intensify its commitments in a nimble way that makes best use of constrained resources and reflects the realities and limitations of ASEAN as an organization.
The UK should also focus on expanding its economic and security cooperation with Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. All are experiencing rapid GDP growth and face increasing challenges from China’s assertive behaviour. In contrast to the UK’s relationships with ASEAN’s Commonwealth members, its relationships with these three large emerging nations are relatively underdeveloped across trade, investment and security. This means there is a significant potential upside to deepening ties. But the UK will need to invest more time and resources in unlocking the opportunities available, because conducting business and diplomacy can be challenging in all three nations. Indonesia and the Philippines are sprawling archipelagic democracies with high degrees of decentralization, boisterous politics and protectionist economic tendencies. Vietnam is much more open to external trade and investment, but it is also a one-party Communist state that lacks transparency and has a poor human rights record. Moreover, its rigid system of party control can make security cooperation difficult. Acknowledging and understanding these challenges will be the key to overcoming them. At the same time, the value of wider trade agreements such as the CPTPP will only be realized if the UK works with British businesses to support their links to the region and help them take advantage of the potential benefits of a closer relationship.
Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam are also essential to the global fight against climate change, which this British government and its predecessors have rightly made a priority. All three emerging nations have rapidly increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Their major cities, manufacturing areas and food production zones are all dangerously exposed to sea-level rises and unpredictable weather. But the countries also have the potential to shift quickly towards renewable energy. The UK has already made positive initial steps on this front, backing Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) with Vietnam and Indonesia; these partnerships are designed to crowd in investment and support developing countries in shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy. As the UK is a centre both of global finance and of expertise on climate change and the energy transition, there is scope for the UK government, British businesses and other UK climate actors to be involved in a much wider range of activities – whether directly in Southeast Asian countries or in support of related initiatives in the region. Given that the UK’s international development budget has been cut, however, the government will need to work more closely with businesses, investors, and the academic and scientific communities to find areas where it can use its limited funding as a catalyst for the activities of others.
On international development more generally, the significant aid cuts and erratic trade policy of the US have jeopardized the US’s foreign policy credibility, and have provided a relative boost to China’s reputation as an economic and development partner. In this context, the UK’s own aid budget cuts seem ill conceived, as they leave a significant gap in development support that middle powers and smaller countries in the region will look to China (and others) to fill; this may entrench China’s position as a regional patron. Nonetheless, despite the UK’s reduced resources, there are some actions which the British government can usefully take. These include helping to coordinate the urgent tasks of both simplifying the global development system and of prioritizing how best to spend shrinking financial resources within it. Initial suggestions that the UK will seek to convene a discussion in 2025 on ‘the future of aid’ are promising. Without a considered approach, the risk is that UK cuts in aid will lead to a diluted response across multiple priorities, not only in Southeast Asia but elsewhere too. Reducing the amounts the UK spends from its aid budget on providing accommodation in the UK for refugees and asylum-seekers would help to free up more funds for overseas support. With less to spend, the UK will need to cooperate more closely with its European allies and the Indo-Pacific Four, while focusing on the priorities most valued by Southeast Asia’s increasingly middle-income countries; these priorities include mobilizing investment for development, job creation and the climate transition.
The UK has solid business and trade foundations in Southeast Asia, but the government needs to do more to expand these relationships. On the economic front, British companies such as BP, HSBC and Prudential are already major investors in the region. But there are many more opportunities to be tapped, given the right promotional effort and support from the government. British International Investment, the UK’s development finance institution, should continue to expand its work in Southeast Asia, where it can deliver social impact for regional partners while helping to catalyse private sector opportunities. Conversely, fast-growing Southeast Asian companies are increasingly looking for external investment opportunities in more advanced economies. The UK can capitalize on this shift, at a time when many other nations are closing their doors to foreign investment.
Fast-growing Southeast Asian companies are increasingly looking for external investment opportunities in more advanced economies. The UK can capitalize on this shift, at a time when many other nations are closing their doors to foreign investment.
When it comes to security, the UK can learn much about the challenges of confronting China from its Southeast Asian partners, who are on the front line in terms of resisting Beijing’s efforts to assert regional dominance. While the British military is already thinly stretched, the UK can do much more to help Southeast Asian nations become more resilient. This could include expanding strategic dialogues with key partners, and increasing cooperation in areas such as military education, maritime law and maritime domain awareness.
The UK is an important external security partner for the region. A permanent UK military base in Brunei is home to a battalion of the Royal Gurkha Rifles. Two British offshore patrol vessels are permanently deployed to the Indo-Pacific. Security-related UK activities in the region also include regular Royal Navy ship visits, extensive defence diplomacy with Southeast Asian governments, and cooperation on military training. Beyond specifically military aspects, Southeast Asian governments are keen to intensify their security cooperation with the UK because of its high-technology defence industrial base, its global diplomatic heft, its reputation for excellence in intelligence, and its broad expertise and influence in the maritime sector (spanning the shipping industry, insurance and international law).
The UK has already applied to join the ASEAN Regional Forum and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus, two key annual security summits. While it should continue to pursue these bids, it should also explore more informal and flexible engagement. The action plan agreed between the UK and ASEAN for 2022–26 covers nearly every possible area of cooperation. In the next iteration, currently being negotiated, the UK needs to narrow its focus to the most productive areas of overlapping national interests with Southeast Asian states. It will take time and diplomatic effort to zero in on these areas. The UK will need to listen more carefully to regional partners, who sometimes privately accuse their British counterparts of seeking to impose an external agenda without paying sufficient heed to Southeast Asian perspectives. The UK should also work behind the scenes with the Indo-Pacific Four and European partners to deconflict and deduplicate cooperation initiatives in Southeast Asia, where diplomats often complain that they are invited to clashing workshops on similar issues by different external partners. And, to signal its commitment to the region, the UK government should accelerate plans to reopen an embassy in Timor-Leste, which is set to become the 11th member of ASEAN in October 2025.
3. Prioritize regional integration and stability in South Asia, not just the UK–India relationship
South Asia is the world’s fastest-growing region economically and accounts for almost a quarter of the world’s population – more than a third of whom are below the age of 18. However, when it comes to integration between states, South Asia stands in stark contrast to Southeast Asia. South Asia is the most poorly integrated region in the world: both economically, with only 5 per cent of total trade being intra-regional trade; and institutionally, with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the regional organization, not having held a summit since 2014. While the UK is not in a position to impose greater integration on South Asian states, it can help to devise solutions to regional problems: for example, by convening meetings on shared issues of concern such as climate risk and climate change mitigation, or by fostering infrastructure connectivity through institutions such as the Commonwealth.
In recent years, the UK – alongside the US and other US allies – has intensified its relationships with India. This increased engagement in part reflects the somewhat inaccurate perception of India as a geopolitical balancing force against Beijing, and as a potential alternative economic partner at a time when Chinese growth is slowing and China is becoming less open to foreign investment. While this renewed focus on India is long overdue, it is partly driven by irrational exuberance. India, for its part, has always been clear that it is pursuing its own interests on a case-by-case basis, rather than adopting a pro-Western agenda. Evidence of this includes India’s deep and enduring partnership with Russia, a partnership embedded in New Delhi’s long-standing tradition of strategic autonomy in foreign policy. British policymakers need to take a more clear-headed view of the opportunities and risks of engaging with India if the UK is to ensure a successful long-term partnership. The UK also needs to frame its relationship with India in the broader South Asian context, rather than seeing India as a standalone power.
At present, the government’s overall approach to South Asia is disjointed, with different departments engaging various parts of the region. For example, organizational structures in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) have tended to group teams and leads focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan in different directorates from those focused on India and the Indian Ocean region. Developing a more cohesive approach to South Asia in Whitehall would help the UK more effectively address the serious security and economic challenges in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. At the same time, a more unified strategy and more integrated internal institutional structure for South Asia could help UK policymakers to make more of the opportunities India presents, while mitigating risks in the bilateral relationship.
The announcement in May 2025 of the UK’s conclusion of a free-trade agreement with India complements efforts to build out the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership that was agreed with New Delhi in 2021. But given India’s protectionist instincts, any final deal is unlikely to be transformative for the bilateral economic relationship. That is why it is important that the UK government supports other channels that can expand trade and investment linkages, such as the Technology Security Initiative that was launched in 2024. More broadly, gambling on India’s economy to rise more or less on its own – in the absence of similar progress in neighbouring economies – would be a poor bet. Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are all in the midst of International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailouts; these four countries’ domestic political travails, and their tensions with New Delhi, present major risks to South Asian stability. The stakes have been underlined by the renewal of hostilities between India and Pakistan in April and May 2025, and by the downturn in relations between India and Bangladesh following Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s removal in August 2024; the latter development has undermined regional connectivity initiatives.
The UK can – and must – work more closely with India and its South Asian neighbours, finding ways to better facilitate cooperation with regional and extra-regional partners.
Reflecting India’s preference for informal, minilateral groupings, the UK should strengthen trilateral engagement with India and third powers such as the US, Australia or France. Areas of potential cooperation include technology (exploring synergies between the India–UK Technology Security Initiative, the India–US Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (renamed the TRUST Initiative by the Trump administration) and the EU–India Trade and Technology Council); energy (such as India’s push to develop small modular nuclear reactors, which has been accelerated by the push to revise the country’s nuclear liability legislation); and security (particularly in the Indian Ocean region). Such efforts could eventually link up with existing regional initiatives such as the Quad, which comprises Australia, India, Japan and the US.
Reflecting India’s preference for informal, minilateral groupings, the UK should strengthen trilateral engagement with India and third powers such as the US, Australia or France.
South Asia is also an area in which British, but particularly US, aid cuts will bite. Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan are the largest recipients of US foreign assistance in South and Central Asia. These are also the most vulnerable countries in that region, as evidenced by the fact that most US aid to South and Central Asia has been used for humanitarian, health and economic development purposes. In relation to South Asia itself, any UK prioritization and coordination with remaining donors should focus on maintaining multilateral support for work on urgent humanitarian and refugee crises. A prime example is the Rohingya refugee crisis, for which Bangladesh continues to bear significant response costs despite itself having been rocked by political turmoil. Another area of UK focus should be on cultivating joint efforts to build climate resilience. South Asia is among the most vulnerable regions to climate shock events – as illustrated by the devastating impact of floods that struck Pakistan in 2022.
The British government should also work with India across other parts of the Global South, prioritizing policy areas and geographies where the two countries have overlapping interests and can offer complementary capabilities. India’s ambition to be a leading voice of the Global South should be leveraged as New Delhi seeks to offer a more benign worldview that is non-Western but not explicitly anti-Western. Areas of cooperation could include digital public infrastructure, education, climate finance and health, with the UK potentially able to both offer financing solutions and use forums such as the Commonwealth to support Indian initiatives, particularly in South Asia.
4. Intensify cooperation with European partners in the Indo-Pacific
European states have increasingly built ties in the Indo-Pacific. Engagement has been driven by economic interests and by security concerns over China’s rising assertiveness. France, as a resident power in the region due to its overseas territories, was among the first European nations to adopt an Indo-Pacific strategy, set out in 2018; it later updated this strategy in subsequent policy documents. Germany released its own Indo-Pacific guidelines in 2020; these emphasized the need to diversify economic partnerships and reinforce rules-based regional security. The EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy, released in 2021, highlighted the need for economic, security and digital cooperation with regional partners. Additionally, the Netherlands, Italy and other European states have outlined their own approaches to the Indo-Pacific, often aligning with broader EU strategies. Most of these documents contain common themes and aspirations shared with the UK. In particular, such strategies display a desire by European states to moderate the effects of great power competition in the Indo-Pacific, and to provide alternatives to cooperation with China by presenting themselves as the partners of choice on trade, security and development. All European partners – as well as Indo-Pacific allies – have limited resources in this regard, but many have shared goals. Better coordination could be achieved not necessarily by announcing new joint projects or committees, but by picking specific areas on which to work more closely on existing plans and ensuring that these are meaningful to partners. For example, in recent years states and entities including the EU and the Quad governments have sought to offer training and technology to partners in the region to help patrol and detect vessels off their coasts. But these offers can overlap, some are still nascent, and some partners in the region report that adopting and implementing them successfully remains challenging – coordinating efforts could prevent such problems, and would be more productive than launching new initiatives.
This is particularly the case when it comes to security. The UK has increased its deployment of military assets in the Indo-Pacific. The UK’s Carrier Strike Group was deployed to the region in 2021, and is being deployed there again in 2025. In 2021, the UK government also announced it would permanently station two naval vessels in the Indo-Pacific. France, meanwhile, has long maintained a military presence in its Indo-Pacific territories, while Germany and the Netherlands have sent naval assets to the region in recent years. Given this substantial aggregate commitment, there is a case to be made for coordinated European naval deployments, joint exercises and intelligence-sharing to strengthen deterrence against coercive actions – for example, by China – in the South China Sea and beyond. Some moves along these lines have already occurred. In 2023 the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the then UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, agreed to coordinate aircraft carrier visits to the region. There is also the possibility of the UK working more closely with the EU’s Coordinated Maritime Presences (CMP) initiative, which aims to enhance European naval activity in key sea lanes.
Governance is another area in which cooperation between the UK and Europe could hold promise. Both the UK and EU states are concerned about China’s influence on various norms across the region – from technological standards, via China’s export of low-cost digital infrastructure, to its approach to security and trade norms. With straitened budgets and urgent security priorities in their own immediate region, the EU and the UK could do more to consolidate their work to support open trade, economic development and predictable security in the Indo-Pacific. This could include collaborating to uphold or reform international institutions that are under significant pressure, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Health Organization. To offset the withdrawal of some US support for these institutions, a ‘coalition of the willing’ in Europe and the Indo-Pacific may need to take up the slack; in relation to trade, one possibility would be to refocus existing efforts by building a shared consensus on the purpose of the WTO and on the benefits of predictable trade.
As the only European participant in the CPTPP (whose constituent economies account for around 15 per cent of the global economy), the UK should facilitate more cooperation between CPTPP members and the EU. At a time of rising protectionism, the EU and the states that make up the CPTPP all aspire to support open global trade, pursue further economic integration, and agree rules on everything from digital commerce to state capitalism. In recent calls with the prime ministers of New Zealand and Singapore (both CPTPP members), Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said she was eager to explore ‘closer cooperation’ with the CPTPP. While the EU is highly unlikely to ever join a pre-existing trade agreement, the British government can be an important interlocutor in helping the EU and CPTPP members find areas of meaningful convergence and collaboration.
The UK and European allies could also work more closely with Australia, Japan and South Korea to monitor supply chains and diversify sources of critical goods and materials such as semiconductors and rare earths, thus helping to reduce reliance on China. Partners could also share lessons on common approaches to monitoring and restricting foreign investment in sensitive sectors, in order to prevent economic coercion and technology theft; this is an issue on which all of these countries have recently tightened their legal measures and reinforced policy tools. Finally, with aid budgets having been cut across many European countries, and the shuttering of USAID and major US aid cuts reducing overall aid funding worldwide, there is a strong case for European countries including the UK to cooperate on amplifying shared approaches to development and climate action; such an approach could have stronger effects than working separately with diminished budgets. Joint action should include refreshing the approach of the EU’s Global Gateway development programme, an initiative intended to respond to China’s Belt and Road Initiative but which – despite a number of flagship projects and interventions – has been criticized for a lack of transparency, coherence or clear assessment of impact. Coordinating engagement via regular dialogues between senior officials, and potentially setting shared priorities as part of the broader EU–UK reset, would help to lay the foundations for these joint efforts. Recent agreements between the UK and France and the UK and Germany respectively to intensify Indo-Pacific cooperation are a positive political signal. But there is much to be done to put these agreements into effect.
5. Make a strong public case for Indo-Pacific engagement
At home, the UK government needs to make a stronger case to parliament, the business community and the public that the Indo-Pacific should remain an enduring priority in British foreign policy. This does not mean a shift from the security and defence focus on Europe, but a clearer sense of why the Indo-Pacific is vital for national interests such as accelerating economic growth, maintaining global freedom of navigation, supporting a free and open trading system, and tackling climate change. While recent strategic documents, including the previous Conservative government’s Integrated Review Refresh and the current government’s 2025 National Security Strategy, acknowledge the region’s economic and geopolitical significance, the argument for sustained, proportionate engagement needs to be more clearly and compellingly made by the Labour government. This should include presenting the case that increased Indo-Pacific engagement provides an opportunity to work with European allies to consolidate shared ties and amplify the advancement of common interests, and offering reassurance that such a shift would not involve replacing one regional focus with another.
Critically, the Indo-Pacific should also be recognized as a pillar of the UK’s global climate leadership. UK climate diplomacy often concentrates on the need to engage with China, given the latter’s position as the world’s largest emitter. But other regional powers – India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam – are also significant regional carbon emitters and crucial players in tackling climate change. Supporting Indo-Pacific countries’ transitions to clean energy, fostering green finance and bolstering climate resilience in the region should be priorities for the UK. This should include ensuring that early progress on securing partnerships to wind down coal-fired power production in Indonesia and Vietnam does not stall, and that various climate finance initiatives remain on track.
A wider public narrative in the UK also matters. The Labour government has rightly identified that while ordinary voters may not pinpoint foreign affairs as their top concern, the public nonetheless cares about security and desires the UK to be insulated from intensifying geopolitical risks and shocks. The government should frame cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners as a key plank in this undertaking, as well as part of a broader mission to uphold order, global rules and predictability in an uncertain world.
The UK is home to one of the most globally connected capital cities, a major financial centre, and world-leading media, research and education institutions. For these reasons, Indo-Pacific government members and elites want to come to the UK – and to visit London in particular. Among the many external partners seeking influence and opportunities in the Indo-Pacific, this gives the UK an advantage. When asked what his country wants from the UK, one senior diplomat from a large Asian nation replied: ‘We want to learn from your science and technology and to work with you to shape the global narrative about our country.’
However, Asian diplomats, particular those from developing countries, routinely complain in private that their leaders do not get the level of political and diplomatic access that they feel they deserve, or that they would be offered in Beijing. By working harder to make regional partners feel welcomed and respected in the UK, the government can improve its relations in the Indo-Pacific and make a clearer case to the British public about the importance of the region. Doing so will require more collaboration across the UK government and with the private sector and civil society. An effective and enduring approach to the Indo-Pacific must begin at home, while also leveraging the UK’s strong presence in the region and the power and depth of its global partnerships with like-minded middle powers.
