Select committee: Foreign Affairs Committee
Recommendation 25
Eighth Report - Tilting horizons: the Integrated Review and the Indo-Pacific
Published 30 Aug 2023
Paragraph 87
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Foreign Affairs Committee Implementing the Integrated Review: Tilt to the Indo-Pacific All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Government recognises the threat that the Chinese Communist Party could use economic coercion to influence UK decision making by targeting strategically critical sectors. The Government has not taken adequate action to tackle this threat. It must work to identify which technologies, infrastructure and components the UK is most dependent on China for, and plan to mitigate dependencies. Priority should be afforded to areas where such technologies are embedded in Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) and the Internet of Things. The Government should create a strategic dependency risk assessment of technologies, infrastructure and components embedded in Critical National Infrastructure.
From: Foreign Affairs Committee, Eighth Report - Tilting horizons: the Integrated Review and the Indo-Pacific (HC 172), paragraph 87, 30 August 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 22 March 2024 (deadline 30 October 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's recognition of the Indo-Pacific's strategic importance and agrees on many points, but disagrees on a China Strategy, assessments of IPEF and RCEP, and the Committee's human rights criticisms.
- It agrees the Indo-Pacific must be a "long term and enduring aspect" of UK policy, but disagrees that it has not set out its long-term objectives clearly.
- On China, it disagrees with the recommendation to publish an unclassified China Strategy, stating it "does not intend to publish an additional China Strategy" while maintaining "as much transparency as possible".
- It "partially agrees" on funding and posts, citing doubled British High Commissions in the Pacific, and says CSSF funding "is adjusted annually" given the fiscal situation.
- It disagrees that it should publish assessments of IPEF while negotiations are ongoing or of RCEP, and says it does not "currently envisage" seeking to join RCEP.