The UK will work to forge strong diplomatic and economic ties with new allies, who will be crucial in the future. This approach will build on our successful work alongside partner nations over recent decades of relative peace and prosperity to tackle poverty across the world, reduce deaths in conflicts and promote growth internationally.

Indonesia is central to this work, and the UK’s relationship with our Indonesian partners has gone from strength to strength over recent years. Its Group of 20 presidency showed the world’s respect for Indonesia and its appreciation for President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s patient diplomacy in the face of huge challenges.

Cementing meaningful relationships like that we have with Indonesia, based on mutual benefit and a shared belief in free trade and territorial sovereignty, the UK will seek to boost development, defense, technology, cyber security, climate change adaption and environmental protection partnerships.

The international order built post-1945, including through the United Nations, enabled an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity but we are living in a momentous period when the pace of change is accelerating with hurricane force, and there are challenges to the principles of that international order, most obviously in the global instability caused by Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine.

The UK and Indonesia are celebrating their 73^rd anniversary of diplomatic relations. Over nearly three quarters of a century, we have achieved so much. Our great friendship was cemented in April this year, when our foreign ministers agreed a ground-breaking UK-Indonesia Roadmap.

This demonstrates the enormous breadth of our links, and includes commitments to collaboration and protecting common interests in areas as diverse as climate change, development, defense, technology and cyber security.

And all that activity is underpinned by our shared commitment to an open, inclusive, and rules-based multilateral and regional system, based on international law, including democratic principles, human rights, and fundamental freedoms.

The vitality of the UK-Indonesia partnership has been demonstrated by the concrete and successful events and collaborations we have seen in recent months. We were delighted to support Indonesia’s successful G20 presidency, which produced important initiatives, including the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP).

This country-led partnership will help Indonesia in its ambition to pursue an accelerated just energy transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable sources. The transition will not only deliver enhanced climate action, but will support economic growth, new skilled jobs, reduced pollution, and a resilient, prosperous future for Indonesians.

At the B20 Summit, British and Indonesian partners reached agreements and announcements in areas such as transport, education, clean growth, environmental development, and electric vehicles. Most notably, the UK and Indonesian governments signed a Letter of Intent to work together on railway development cooperation, specifically on the Jakarta MRT project, for which UK Export Finance, the UK’s export credit agency, has expressed interest in financing with up to US$1.25 billion.

The UK’s growing number of partnerships with Indonesia follows the successful first ministerial meeting of the UK-Indonesia Joint Economic and Trade Committee in February 2022, established to promote and develop trade, investment and economic cooperation between our two countries.

It also follows the signing of the UK-Indonesia MoU on Investment Cooperation in October 2022, which aims to increase two-way investment in value-added minerals, energy transition and life sciences.

Our bilateral cooperation on climate change is going from strength to strength. An agreement to work together in support of Indonesia’s goals on Forests and Land Use, signed in October this year, is just the latest installment in cooperation going back more than 20 years.

We applaud Indonesia’s international leadership on climate and environment issues, including its ambitious Forest and Land Use Net Sink 2030 target and the establishment of the new SVLK timber standard, seeking to strengthen further the assurance of the legality and sustainability of Indonesia’s timber.

Cyber has quickly become a leading area of cooperation in the UK-Indonesian relationship. We signed a Cyber Security MoU in 2018, noting our shared interest in maintaining a free, open, peaceful, and secure cyberspace. In the last few years, the UK has worked with the Indonesian government to improve cybersecurity regulations for the banking sector; secure the vital telemedicine sector; and deliver information security through exercises and training. I look forward to strengthening this work further at the second UK-Indonesia Cyber Dialogue, early next year in London.

We are also deepening our people-to-people engagement and supporting human capital development in Indonesia through collaboration in education, English language, arts and culture, led by the British Council.  

With rapidly growing populations and a growing share of global wealth, we know and welcome the fact that countries like Indonesia will play a far greater role in shaping the way the world looks over the century to come. They will have a more powerful voice on the global stage and the Foreign Secretary has this week outlined Britain’s ambition to forge even tighter links with these partner countries and regions, not just for the now, but decades to come.

Together, we will offer a credible and reliable alternative to countries like Russia, who actively and aggressively flout the global order. Of course, the UK will maintain existing solid relationships with allies, but also look to new partnerships with countries that are regionally influential, growing wealthier, happy to seek their own paths in their own interests and wanting an amplified voice on the world stage. These future powers will be crucial in the years to come and the UK will pursue future focused mutually beneficial partnerships with them as they do so, through patient diplomacy and a bespoke offer of trade, development assistance, expertise, cultural links, security and strong bilateral diplomatic ties.

That UK offer to these future partner countries will be tailored to their needs and UK strengths, and will be backed-up with reliable sources of infrastructure investment.

In the past we have perhaps been too transactional, too impatient. Now we will show strategic endurance, and a willingness to commit for the long term with foreign policy, consistently planning for tomorrow, scanning the horizon, and preparing us for the next 10, 15 and 20 years ahead.

Our relationship with Indonesia is already one of long-term commitment and collaboration. I look forward to helping to make it still stronger in 2023 and beyond.

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The writer is British Ambassador to Indonesia and Timor Leste.