Eleventh Report - UK Defence and the Indo-Pacific

The Committee supports the Government’s assessment that China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is “an epoch-defining and systemic challenge”. China seeks to erode the current rules-based international order by exploiting weaknesses in the system. Rather than looking to act … Read more The Committee supports the Government’s assessment that China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is “an epoch-defining and systemic challenge”. China seeks to erode the current rules-based international order by exploiting weaknesses in the system. Rather than looking to act as the world’s policeman in a mutually beneficial system, China’s interest is in establishing dominance over its wider region to purely Chinese advantage. In military terms, China’s publicly stated ambition to “fight and win” global wars by 2049 illustrates the threat it poses to international security. An important waypoint is China’s goal of establishing a fully modernised military—and a peer adversary of the United States—by 2027. The Government should carry out an assessment of China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to consider whether it should be labelled as a threat to national and international security. Show less

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The UK Government’s future strategy for the Indo-Pacific is still unclear. The Government should create a dedicated Indo-Pacific strategy, which sets out how military instruments can be used in support of the UK’s wider pursuit of its goals and interests … Read more The UK Government’s future strategy for the Indo-Pacific is still unclear. The Government should create a dedicated Indo-Pacific strategy, which sets out how military instruments can be used in support of the UK’s wider pursuit of its goals and interests in the region in peacetime and during conflict. Within this strategy, the Ministry of Defence should include a comprehensive defence and diplomatic response to the growing threat posed by China under the CCP. This strategy should also identify the specific aims of the Tilt and make clear how the Government intends to achieve these, whilst being realistic about what is achievable. (Paragraph 97) 42 UK Defence and the Indo-Pacific Show less

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Defence was only a small element of the so-called Indo-Pacific ‘Tilt’ outlined in the 2021 Integrated Review and the Defence Command Paper. The result has been a modest increase in UK military presence in the region. This has manifested primarily through increased presence in the region of naval capabilities, and …

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