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Discourse: After Brexit, UK seeks to become dependable ASEAN partner
Simon McDonald (Courtesy of UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office)Last year, the United Kingdom launched its All of Asia policy and announced that it would appoint a dedicated envoy to ASEAN, all in an effort to boost engagement with countries in Southeast Asia
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Simon McDonald (Courtesy of UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office)
Last year, the United Kingdom launched its All of Asia policy and announced that it would appoint a dedicated envoy to ASEAN, all in an effort to boost engagement with countries in Southeast Asia. The Jakarta Post’s Agnes Anya recently interviewed Simon McDonald, permanent undersecretary and head of diplomatic services at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to shed light on the UK’s advances. Here are some excerpts:
Question: The UK has painted its All of Asia approach as one that seeks to tap into the economic opportunities of a booming region, albeit in the midst of efforts to divorce itself from one of the most established group of economies, the European Union. Why should Southeast Asia, a region that is working its way toward the high multilateral standards of the EU through ASEAN, care about the UK’s forays in Asia?
Answer: ASEAN’s future development, of course, is in the hands of the ASEAN members states. But, what I see in ASEAN is a relatively loose grouping of countries than the EU’s ambition. And, the problem that the UK — I believe — had with the EU was the ambition of the integrationists to make it an even tighter block. So, it seems to me that ASEAN and its member states have [had] a thought about this already and [...] have a distinctive plan for themselves which is different from the EU. And, the British experience suggests that having a looser bloc is easier for more member states to agree [upon].
What can the UK bring to the table in Asia, especially after its implicit disavowal of multilateralism seen in Brexit?
We have to look at the fundamentals of what the UK has to offer. The UK will remain a big player around the world. The UK will remain a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the next two years. We look forward to working closely with Indonesia because Indonesia is on the Security Council for the next two years. The UK will remain one of the top six economies in the world. We will remain a country that spends 2 percent of GDP [gross domestic product] on defense and 0.7 percent of GDP on development assistance. We are the only G20 country that does both of these things. So, the UK by itself is still a considerable player on the world stage with deep knowledge of Southeast Asia and deep continuing interests in Southeast Asia. So, one fact is we are the second largest foreign direct investor in Indonesia right now.
We all know there has been great power contestation between the United States and China in Southeast Asia. What is the UK’s position on these dynamics?
Clearly China and the US are the biggest powers in Southeast Asia. But, it has always seemed to me that Southeast Asian countries want options and more options, not less. The fact that the UK is available as a partner — I hope — is attractive. So, it is not simply a choice between Beijing and Washington. There are other choices too, including London.
What are the UK’s interests in the region? And how does it differ from its interests in the Commonwealth, which some countries in the region are already a part of?
Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore — all members of the Commonwealth — are an indication of the length and strength of the ties of the UK with this region overall. But, we have not confined our good relations to Commonwealth countries. We are also developing quite rapidly our relations with countries like Indonesia and Vietnam. In the last three years or so, we have grown our embassy in Jakarta by 20 percent. And so, the interest that we have goes wider than just the Commonwealth bits of the region. The markets across the whole of the area are huge and growing. Right now, ASEAN is the third largest market for the UK outside of the EU. And, with a population that is increasingly middle-class and increasingly prosperous, there is great potential to do more business with the countries of ASEAN.
As a young region, ASEAN is one of the most rapidly growing parts of the world economically. That is of interest to the UK. The UK economy depends on international trade. So, countries with developed markets are of particular interest and countries with growing markets are of even greater interest. And so, ASEAN fits into that category.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and his defense counterpart, Gavin Williamson, have spoken about the UK’s plan to set up permanent naval bases in Southeast Asia, as well as in the Caribbean, which will be the first since the withdrawal of military forces in the 1960s and 1970s. Why does the UK insist on returning to Asia with military power? What does it aim to achieve?
No decisions have been taken but what we are looking at is how to project influence around the world and how to work most effectively [and closely] in partnership with countries from around the world. So, being able to have a [...] presence in this part of the world, we think it’s something useful for the UK to discuss with the countries in this region. It’s not something [of] a unilateral decision. It is something that will only happen if it is for the mutual benefit of the UK and the countries in this region. So, this is very early days as we are thinking about a position in the world after we leave the EU.
