Recommendation 13

HM Government Rejected

While we support the Committee’s recommendation to deepen cooperation with our Euro-Atlantic and regional partners in the Indo-Pacific and recognise the need to maintain secure basing in region, the Government does not believe it needs to publish a dedicated strategy on the Indo-Pacific. The Government has published its vision and its strategic intent for the Indo-Pacific in the original IR21, the IRR23 as well as Defence’s specific aims in the DCP21 and 2023’s updated version. We acknowledge that the Defence presence and resource in the Indo-Pacific is not effective alone. That is why we are deepening our bilateral ties to place our approach in the region on a long term, sustainable footing. In doing so, we have prioritised our coordination with partners, focused on maintaining security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. This includes the US and France but also our partners in the region including Japan, Republic of Korea (ROK), India, Indonesia, FPDA members and Five Eyes partners. The DCP23 laid out our ‘campaigning approach’ which brings together all the levers of Defence – not only military, but also informational, economic and defence diplomatic – in conjunction with wider Government, elements of the private sector, and with our allies and partners to focus ourselves on the evolving threat context globally. The Government shares the view of the Committee on the importance of closer cooperation with the United States and France. Working with our partners in the region is allowing us to improve our interoperability and align our efforts to achieve stronger collective strategic impact against regional threats. In coordinating with our partners, our goal is to enable a persistent, effective, and joint Pacific-Atlantic presence. The United States The US remains the UK’s most important strategic ally. The depth of this relationship– from intelligence co-operation to policy and military coordination – remains an essential pillar of our security. It has been further strengthened through our co-ordinated response to the war in Ukraine and other measures such as the New Atlantic Charter. Our interlinked defence relationship enables us to train and operate together and spans the globe. We have an ambitious exercise programme with the US throughout the Indo-Pacific; this ranges from Exercise PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP alongside the US Navy and Coastguard in the Philippines to participation in the multilateral exercise RIMPAC in the Pacific. We further demonstrated our ability to deploy at scale to the Indo-Pacific with the US alongside other allies during the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 2021. France The UK and France very much agree on the importance of securing a free and open Indo-Pacific. The March 2023 UK-France Summit reaffirmed our longstanding friendship and partnership and committed to regular strategic dialogues on the Indo-Pacific. We also agreed to undertake to coordinate our carrier deployments to provide complementary and more persistent European presence in regions of shared interest. Moreover, bilateral co-ordination with France is already underway for the Offshore Patrol Vessels’ deployment to the Indo-Pacific. We will also cooperate on issues affecting Small Island Developing States, such as access to finance and economic resilience including in the Indo-Pacific, where some Pacific Islands face critical challenges. Regional Access We agree with the Committee on the importance of basing and access. The UK already has a global network of operational and logistic support bases that enables us to play a leading role in delivering international security. Diego Garcia, the main island and military base in the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), remains important for the defence needs of the UK and US. In Oman, the UK Joint Logistics Support Base at Duqm, helps facilitate Royal Navy deployments to the Indian Ocean, including the ability to support our aircraft carriers. We retain a military presence in Brunei, through the Resident Infantry Battalion, and in Singapore through the British Defence Singapore Support Unit (BDSSU), alongside our FPDA partners. These provide strategic access points for the UK, enabling us to contribute to regional security through our presence. We constantly review and improve the methods by which we deliver our commitments to a global presence and routinely consult with our allies and partners on matters related to basing and access. Alongside this, we are making further decisive improvements to our approach to operations and warfighting. Our forces will be versatile and flexible in delivering a range of tasks, founded on modernisation and integration. We are also evolving our forces to ensure they are ready for permanent and persistent global engagement. China The UK has made clear our policy on China in the Integrated Review Refresh 2023. We will pursue our policy through three interrelated strands: we will further strengthen our national security protections, deepen our coopera