The Pacific Review

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpre20

International order transition and the UK’s tilt to

the ‘Indo-Pacific’

Shaun Breslin & Peter Burnham

To cite this article: Shaun Breslin & Peter Burnham (2023) International order
transition and the UK’s tilt to the ‘Indo-Pacific’, The Pacific Review, 36:2, 406-432, DOI:
10.1080/09512748.2022.2160796

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2022.2160796

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa

UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group

Published online: 06 Jan 2023.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 3037

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rpre20
THE PACIFIC REVIEW
2023, VOL. 36, NO. 2, 406–432
https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2022.2160796

International order transition and the UK’s tilt to

the ‘Indo-Pacific’
Shaun Breslina and Peter Burnhamb
a
Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry,
England; bDepartment of Political Science and International Studies, University of
Birmingham, Birmingham, England

ABSTRACT
This article analyzes the UK government’s response to international order transi-
tion as seen through its recent foreign policy ‘tilt’ toward the ‘Indo-Pacific’. It sug-
gests that in post-Brexit Britain the determinants of foreign policy are
increasingly complex involving an attempt to balance domestic policy, manage
internal party conflict and establish an “independent” position in international
relations in the context of US attempts to build a “grand alliance” against China.
Our central argument is that the UK policy shift toward the Indo-Pacific is
informed in large part by a changing dominant narrative on China and in particu-
lar by perceptions of China as “systemic competitor” in the global political econ-
omy. We argue that not only is the “tilt” at this point in time based on rather
questionable assumptions regarding the UK’s relationship with the ‘region’ but
that ‘international order transition’ is more complex than is suggested by the
new UK policy orientation. Limited in terms of conventional military power, the
UK tilt strategy focuses on effecting institutional and normative change and posi-
tions the UK as a ‘soft power superpower’ alongside the United States in the
region. In the context of renewed international political and economic crisis the
“tilt” expresses the contradictions that lie at the heart of UK foreign policy rather
than offering a clearly defined and viable new orientation for “global Britain.”

KEYWORDS Indo-Pacific; UK-China relations; UK foreign policy

Introduction
In its foreign policy reset in 2021, the UK government officially undertook a
self-declared “tilt” with the goal of becoming “the European partner with
the broadest and most integrated presence in the Indo-Pacific” (HM

CONTACT Shaun Breslin shaun.breslin@warwick.ac.uk University of Warwick, Coventry, England

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic
content of the article.
ß 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 407

Government, 2021, p. 66; Raab, 2020a). The so-called Integrated Review

(HM Government, 2021) was of course in large part the result of Brexit and
embodies an attempt to foster an idea of a new “Global Britain” no longer
constrained in its actions and ambitions by membership of the EU. The
notion that the UK was previously unable to focus on Asia - however
defined - is of course somewhat questionable. And some of what was done
in the immediate aftermath of Brexit simply entailed rebuilding the trade
relationships with Asian states that the UK would otherwise have had as an
EU member. Nevertheless, Brexit provided the opportunity for self-reflection
and consideration of both future challenges and past policy shortcomings
and the Integrated Review represents in large part the UK government’s
response to perceptions of international order transition accelerated by the
Covid-19 pandemic (He, 2021).
He and Feng (in this issue) provide a convincing argument that inter-
national order transition is more complex than is often perceived and that the
relationship between the US and China is multidimensional and not
adequately theorized in terms of a simple realist ‘power shift’. Using a ‘three-
pillar’ conceptualization of international order, with a focus on power distribu-
tions, institutional set-up and norm diffusion (not unlike Robert Cox’s (1987)
influential neo-gramscian trichotomous analytic framework) He and Feng con-
clude that the complexity of the US-China relationship means that it is too
early to predict an inevitable conflict and that the “process and outcome of
order transition are still ‘unwritten’ rather than ‘destined for war’”. They also
suggest that strategic competition will be increasingly focused on the Indo-
Pacific region and that secondary powers will play an important role in shap-
ing the development of any ‘order transition’. It is in the light of these funda-
mental points that this paper considers the current strategy of the UK
government. We will argue that the UK “tilt” toward the Indo-Pacific represents
in large part a response to the changing dominant narrative on China and in
particular US-driven perceptions of a Chinese government actively engaged in
‘order transition’. We suggest that not only is the “tilt” at this point in time
based on rather questionable assumptions regarding the UK’s relationship
with the ‘region’ but that the fluctuating fortunes of the post-Brexit
Conservative government do not provide a solid basis for a consistent foreign
policy and that the Review overstates the ability of a declining secondary state
mired in economic and political crisis to effect any real global change.
The article is in three main parts. First, we consider how the dominant
narrative on China has changed in the UK since 2016 resulting in the gen-
eral endorsement of the ‘China as threat’ thesis (for a critical assessment of
the thesis see Rogelja & Tsimonis, 2020). Second, we point to the ambigu-
ities related to the idea of the ‘Indo-Pacific’—particularly in terms of UK per-
ceptions of the region. Third, we analyze the political economy of the
408 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

region and assess its importance to the UK. Finally, we conclude that the
‘tilt’ to the Indo-Pacific in essence attempts to position the UK as the key
international source of ‘soft power’ supporting US policy in the region and
that the weakness of the Integrated Review lies in its one-dimensional view
of ‘international order’, its deterministic view of ‘order transition’ and its
assumption of stability in domestic UK politics.

The changing UK narrative on China

The last decade of Conservative rule has witnessed a dramatic turnaround
in UK government policy on China. From Cameron’s ‘liberal conservatism’
project (Dodds & Elden, 2008; Honeyman, 2017) which promised to
strengthen relations with China, to the cooling of relations under May, pol-
icy is now largely informed by those on the Conservative Right intent on
weakening ties with China and suggesting that China is pushing for ‘order
transition’ and the end of the so-called ‘liberal rules-based’ international
system (for a critical assessment of the notion of the liberal international
order see Deudney & Ikenberry, 1999). This is clearly announced in the
Integrated Review prompting the need for the Indo-Pacific tilt:
China’s growing international stature is by far the most significant
geopolitical factor in the world today, with major implications for British
values and interests and for the structure and shape of the international
order. (HM Government, 2021, p. 62)

The speed at which the dominant narrative about China’s rise has shifted
warrants brief analysis. In 2015, Xi Jinping’s state visit to the UK seemed to
be a symbol of a new golden age of Sino-UK relations. Speaking to the
Lords International Relations and Defence Committee, Simon McDonald
(former Permanent Under-Secretary at the FCO) said UK policy in 2010 was
to view China “nearly completely as an economic power and an economic
possibility,” with relatively few political implications:
The coalition Government and Prime Minister Cameron and Chancellor
Osborne had a very clear vision of China … . it was all about economics and
being China’s best friend, and they wanted to be first movers and the
gateway into Europe. Some unflatteringly characterised this approach as
Operation Kowtow. We were all in with Beijing, and the apotheosis of this
policy was the state visit of President Xi to London in the autumn of 2015.
(McDonald, 2021)

And even though the Cameron premiership might have taken this pos-
ition to an extreme, it was at one with a broader cross-party pedigree:
I was Gordon Brown’s foreign policy adviser for the whole time he was
Prime Minister, and he absolutely looked at China through an economic
lens. I remember that in his meeting with Chinese leaders he would praise
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 409

and thank the Chinese for what their economy had done for the world after
the Asian financial crisis of 1997. (McDonald, 2021)

But this started to recalibrate in 2016 when Theresa May as prime minis-
ter began to highlight perceived security threats (McDonald, 2021). With
Cameron’s departure from No. 10 the Conservative Right influenced
strongly from the United States began to mount a sustained attempt to
change the overall narrative on China. The beginning of the US-China trade
war in 2018 in which the United States made demands on China to reduce
bilateral deficits by $200 billion - termed by Martin Wolf (2018) of the
Financial Times, “ridiculous” and a “violation of the principles of non-dis-
crimination, multilateralism and market-conformity that underpin the trad-
ing system the US created”—further hardened sentiment towards China,
leading to a view, as McDonald (2021) outlines, that China was now seen as
“politically much more aggressive than they had calculated previously”. This
was not solely a UK recalibration. Mark Sedwill (former National Security
Adviser) emphasises that the shift in British policy was “partly because there
was a shift in Chinese policy” with the perception that China was now
“much more aggressive in its region”. Balancing national security concerns
and economic interests presented a problem for the UK government and
McDonald (2021) is candid in his assessment that the UK is “still grappling
with how to organise policy overall in relation to China” (Sedwill, 2021).
Within the UK, the classical liberal, and right-of-centre, think tank Civitas,
was one of many organisations that produced reports developing a broad
‘China as threat’ thesis (Klinger & McConalogue, 2021). Critical reports on
the relationship appeared in both Houses of Parliament by the House of
Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee (2019a; 2019b) and the House
of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee (2021) alongside
the creation of the China Research Group (CRG) largely, but not exclusively,
from within the Conservative party to provide a forum for the collection
and dissemination of ‘information’ on China. Prior to taking up his role as
Minister of State for Security in September 2022, Tom Tugendhat was not
only joint head of the new CRG but simultaneously Chair of the Foreign
Affairs Select Committee. And while the CRG has played a role in increasing
parliamentary activity towards China, there is also a China Working Group
within the Labour Foreign Policy Group, founded in 2020 to provide a
forum for “strategic foreign policy relationships” (Labour Foreign Policy
Group, 2022). Moreover, there has been the establishment of the largely
private sector driven UK National Committee on China (UKNCC, 2022) to
provide what it calls a “fuller debate on China” (which in part means fuller
than that provided by the CRG); independent reports on the relationship
produced by KCL’s Policy Institute and the British Foreign Policy Group; and
three reports looking specifically at the potential risks of university and
410 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

research collaboration including one by the Conservative Party Human

Rights Commission on Confucius Institutes calling for a review of existing
projects and a moratorium on new agreements. In addition there has been
widespread media coverage of events in Hong Kong and Xinjiang and the
origins of the coronavirus pandemic, and increasingly vocal debates over
the nature of the UK’s relationship with China in the House of Commons.
In short, UK China policy since around the “rolling boundary” (McDonald,
2021) of 2016, has taken place against the backdrop of much greater parlia-
mentary and public interest and scrutiny than was the case in the past with
“concerned voices” prepared to air their views more loudly and more often
than was the case in the past. Public opinion polling suggests a majority of
the UK public now view China as a “force for bad” and have an increasing
appetite for a more assertive China policy (Geddes, 2020). Notably, much of
the criticism of the Cameron government policy toward China—either dir-
ectly or implied—comes from within the Conservative Party itself, led by “a
wing of former Brexiteers, [who] having won the Eurosceptic wars, have
gone on to push a more hawkish stance on China as a central political goal”
(Riley-Smith et al., 2022).
This change has of course had policy implications. Thirty-six
Conservative MPs voted against their own government’s plans for giving
Huawei a limited role in the UK’s 5 G infrastructure in March 2020, and the
government announced new restrictions the following July banning all new
purchases of Huawei equipment by the end of the year, and promising to
remove all Huawei equipment from 5 G networks by end of 2027 (Dowden,
2020). Notably, the rhetoric — and indeed action — of UK ministers and
officials over Xinjiang represents a substantial shift from previous UK
responses to human rights issues in China (see in particular Truss (2022) as
Foreign Secretary on the UN Human Rights Chief’s Report on Xinjiang) and
an even more substantial shift from when George Osborne visited Xinjiang
in 2015 and spoke of its “enormous potential” (HM Treasury, 2015), and was
praised for his pragmatism by the Global Times for focusing on economic
issues and not raising human rights (Global Times Editorial, 2015). As
Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab referred to “egregious, industrial-scale
human rights abuses” (Raab, 2021), which led him to initiate a change in
policy that has resulted in measures designed to ensure that “no British
organisations, government or private sector, deliberately or inadvertently,
profit from or contribute to the human rights violations against the
Uyghurs or other minorities in Xinjiang” (HM Government Press Release,
2021). It has also resulted in the imposition of formal sanctions—in cooper-
ation with the EU, the US and Canada—on four officials and an institution
for “gross human rights violations” (FCDO, 2021c). Chinese policy on Hong
Kong has generated considerable interest from many countries and has of
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 411

course very specific and historical significance for the UK. It is also taken as
an example of China not conforming to (or complying with) the expecta-
tions of what is often referred to as the ‘rules-based international order’ or
system (Foreign Affairs Committee, 2019b).
Similarly, concern has been raised over UK dependence on Chinese
imports and FDI. When Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment (COFDI)
began to expand at a significant rate around 2002 and 2003, the main focus
in the West was on the potential indirect impact and the consequences for
the UK of new financial relationships between China and developing econo-
mies, including many former UK colonies. When it begin to flow to the UK
in significant amounts, there was not initially any significant concern about
UK companies and brand names going into Chinese ownership. From
Nanjing Automobile Group’s purchase of MG Rover in 2005 to the Jingye
Group’s plans to buy what was left of British Steel in 2019, Chinese money
has been seen to offer a chance to failing companies rather than constitute
a threat. Rather than blame China, it was the management of the UK firms
(and mismanagement) that tended to come under scrutiny. And while pub-
lic interest in the impact of the Chinese political economy was not particu-
larly high, where there was interest (and concern) it tended to be more
focused on UK-based producers shifting production and therefore employ-
ment to China, rather than on inward financial flows.
The rapid increase of COFDI in the 2010s (primarily through mergers and
acquisitions) began to change things, resulting by the end of the decade in
what a Civitas report argued was a “potential overexposure to Chinese
investment” (Klinger & McConalogue, 2021). To support this conclusion, the
report cited evidence from one of its own previous reports:
The UK was the second largest recipient of Chinese foreign direct
investment (FDI) in Europe by volume in 2019, mostly due to Chinese-
enterprise acquisitions of additional stakes in a data firm worth £1.8 billion.
It also topped the list of European countries for the number of single
transactions involving Chinese entities. Since 2000, the UK is reported to
have attracted the most Chinese FDI in the EU by far, with a cumulative
volume of e50.3 billion over that period, compared to e22.7 billion for
Germany, the second-ranked country. (Harris et al., 2021)

All of this is true, but within this quote and these reports—and actually,
what is not in them —are examples of the way that the debate over
Chinese investment has taken place in the UK in recent years. While the
growth of Chinese investment is clearly important, it needs to be placed in
a broader context (Breslin, 2021). Investment from China is actually less
than from a number of other Indo-Pacific economies. In 2019, China was
not in the top 10 of investors in the UK, and investment from the EU
accounted for nearly 80 percent of the total (Ward, 2020). The history of sig-
nificant Chinese investment into the UK is relatively short and therefore the
412 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

stock of Chinese investment in the UK is remarkably low. In 2020, China

was 22nd in a league table of overseas investors (Lunn & Curtis, 2020), with
a total stock of £3.4 billion accounting for just 0.2 percent of the total over-
seas investment stock in the UK (Department for International Trade, 2022).
That number can increase if all investment from Hong Kong is added to the
PRC figure, and gets even higher if investors with minority Chinese or Hong
Kong shareholders are also added to the list (Stubely, 2021). But even then,
the increasingly widely held general belief that “the Chinese own every-
thing” is a gross oversimplification and a long way from the truth (China
Research Group, 2021).
Whilst there are a number of reasons that explain why Chinese invest-
ment has caused such concern, there is little doubt that the change in the
leadership of the Conservative government has been fundamental to the
development of the ‘China as threat’ thesis. Within the governing party
there was considerable dissatisfaction with the steps that Cameron and in
particular George Osborne had taken to build a new relationship with
China. Clearly both Brexit and the leadership changes that followed had a
significant impact on both government policy and the nature of the
debate over China’s rise and its international order transition implications.
In this respect it is worth emphasizing the desire on the part of the UK
government to be seen to be largely in step with the United States on
China policy — particularly given the need to maintain US inward invest-
ment and keep alive the increasingly slim idea of a comprehensive trade
agreement (by December 2022 the UK had signed only three new trade
agreements (Australia, New Zealand and Singapore) since leaving the EU
and as Webb (2022) notes, as regards the US, “an agreement is not
expected soon”).
Finally, future histories might point to the COVID-19 pandemic as mark-
ing a turning point in China’s global role and standing, and not just in the
UK. While there is much talk about China using the pandemic to exercise
medical diplomacy and win friends and perhaps global health leadership,
its role in the pandemic has not been perceived quite so positively among
the Conservative Right. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select
Committee published a report on the foreign policy dimensions of the pan-
demic in early April 2020 condemning what it called “disinformation” pro-
vided by the Chinese state that allowed the virus to spread, including
“deliberate misleading of the WHO and scientists in other countries” (House
of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, 2020). Writing in an individ-
ual capacity in the Mail on Sunday, the then backbencher Tom Tugendhat,
went even further sharply posing a question both to the readership and to
his own party leadership:
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 413

Now, more than ever, Britain needs to consider its relationship with China,
our hunger for its goods and investment. Do we want to import China’s
authoritarian value system as well as its products? Or should we work with
other free nations and reduce our growing dependence on this dictatorship?
(Tugendhat, 2020)

Nor was it just a matter of Conservative backbench MPs having more

freedom to be critical than government ministers. Whilst deputizing for the
Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (2020b) echoed the pos-
ition of the US administration that there was “no doubt” that there could
not be “business as usual” with China after the crisis, and that there would
need to be a “deep dive” into how it originally started and spread.
Moreover, whilst remaining critical of official government policy towards
China, there are also members of the opposition Labour Party whose views
of China do not differ that significantly from the overall view of a China
challenge to UK interests and values (Timsit, 2021).
By the time of the two competitions to first replace Boris Johnson and
then Liz Truss as Conservative leader (and thus Prime Minister) in 2022, for
the first time, prospective candidates’ positions on China had become one
of the criteria for choosing a leader of the UK; not the key or defining criter-
ion, but nevertheless part of the decision-making process. In the first of the
contests, Liz Truss promised to officially designate China as an ‘acute threat’
to UK national security (Grylls, 2022)—a promise that she did not have time
to execute. Despite being accused by China-sceptics as being “soft on
China” and being known to favour continued economic engagement
(Groves, 2022), Rishi Sunak also referred to China as the biggest long-term
threat during first of the 2022 leadership campaigns, calling for new alli-
ances to counter “China’s nefarious activity and ambitions”, and promising
to follow through on the Confucius Institute report and close them all
down (Allegretti & Ni, 2022). On assuming the Premiership after the second
contest, Sunak qualified his belief that China provided significant
“challenges to our values, interests and economic security” (and note the
use of the word challenge rather than threat) with a more pragmatic assess-
ment of the necessity of working with China on trade and environment
issues and to “isolate Putin” in “the national interest” (Sunak, 2022). It has
long been accepted that there is a delicate balance between dealing with
China as a potential partner on some issues but as a challenger—or even
threat—in other areas. It now seems that Conservative leaders of the UK
(and possibly future Labour leaders) also have to find a balance between
meeting domestic parliamentary and party expectations on China policy to
attain power on the one hand, and dealing with the reality of China as a
global actor once in power on the other hand. It is in this very specific con-
text of a dramatic change in the dominant narrative on China that the
Integrated Review and UK’s Indo-Pacific ‘tilt’ needs to be placed.
414 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

What’s in a name: Ambiguities of the Indo-Pacific

It is worth reflecting for a moment on the use of the term, ‘tilt’. While it can
be used to mean to thrust violently at something—and in the context of
tilting at windmills, at imaginary enemies—presumably its intended refer-
ence here is to a slight move in a specific direction, rather than a full
about-turn. Certainly, something less than the ‘pivot’ away from one
regional focus to a new one, as the language of the US pivot and reposi-
tioning under Obama was described (Clinton, 2011). Indeed, the Integrated
Review (HM Government, 2021) starts from the argument that, “The United
States will remain our most important bilateral relationship,” and reaffirms
the importance of traditional partners (including NATO, “our European
neighbours and allies,” and the EU as an institution). So, this is not a funda-
mental about-turn, but rather a shift in emphasis. But why use and empha-
size the language of the ‘Indo-Pacific’? In giving evidence to the House of
Commons Foreign Affairs Committee prior to the publication of the
Integrated Review, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (2020a) was not only
firm that the tilt toward the region was one of his key foreign policy prior-
ities, but that there was a clear understanding of what this region actually
was: “We are quite specific in calling it Indo-Pacific rather than just Asia-
Pacific.” He then identified the region as “going east from India,” which
gives some clarity, but it is still worth a brief discussion of what the region
does and does not cover in the eyes of the UK government and
commentators.
The term “east of Suez” has a very specific historical resonance. It refers
back to a time when the UK was a global power, and thanks to the opening
of the Suez Canal, had relatively easy access to colonies and colonial inter-
ests from the Arabian Gulf through Southeast Asia to Australasia. The
Labour government’s decision to wind down military operations “east of
Suez” in the late 1960s is taken as a symbol of the decline of the UK as a
global power, and to geographically limit strategic interests to Europe and
relations with NATO partners (Dockrill, 2002).
Therefore, when Boris Johnson announced as Foreign Secretary in
Bahrain in 2016 that “Britain is back east of Suez,” he was trying to be delib-
erately provocative and equally symbolic (Johnson, 2016). Contrary to
Johnson’s blandishments the process of establishing a new military position
in the Gulf started before Brexit (in 2014), and there was little about EU
membership that would have prevented the UK from continuing its opera-
tions. Even so, this statement, like the dispatch of the Carrier Fleet in 2021,
was a symbol of the new post-Brexit Global Britain in action (James, 2021).
If the retreat from east of Suez resulted in a UK that was primarily focused
on European terrain, the return to east of Suez represented the UK breaking
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 415

out from its previously narrow European arena of action and influence to
re-establish its apparently global ambitions.
This supports the view that the “tilt towards the Indo-Pacific” is best
thought of as part of a “Global Britain” type activity with regional compo-
nents and implications and one which is in essence explained by reference
to the changing narrative on China. It is also important to map the way in
which the UK foreign policy bureaucracy has been reorganized to reflect
some of these strategic “regional” concerns. Coinciding with the Integrated
Review, The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) underwent a structural
reorganization, not least to incorporate the activities of the Department
for International Development. The new Foreign, Commonwealth and
Development Office (FCDO) retained ministerial portfolios that cut across
this understanding of the region with a Minister of State for Asia responsible
for East Asia and Southeast Asia, another Minister of State for Asia (and the
Commonwealth), and a third for the Pacific (and the Environment). These
changes in the organizational structure of the FCDO did not directly map on
to other geographicl divisions in the FCDO. Up to September 2020, there
had been an Asia Pacific directorate covering Southeast Asia, East Asia, and
the Pacific, with India part of a separate directorate covering “South Asia and
Afghanistan.” After the reorganization the new regional distribution of
responsibilities saw Pakistan and Afghanistan forming part of a new
Directorate alongside the Middle East and North Africa. The rest of South
Asia joined the previous Asia-Pacific in a new Indo-Pacific Directorate. The
separation of India from Pakistan in these new directorates is symbolically
very important. It reflects the importance that India is thought to have in the
configuration of power and alliances beyond its longstanding and very spe-
cific tensions with Pakistan. Indeed, one of the key consequences of focusing
on the Indo-Pacific rather than on previous ways of dividing up geographies
is that India is actually separated from its geostrategic competition with
Pakistan, and moved into a new geostrategic constellation of power and alli-
ance centered around responses to China’s rise instead.
It should also be acknowledged that the name of the region is symbolic-
ally very important. Its “quite specific”— to repeat Raab’s words—adoption
and usage points to a deliberate association with the agenda of those in
Japan, India, Australia and elsewhere who have promoted the idea of this
region. Above all else it nominally aligns UK policy with the policies of
others who are concerned about the growth of Chinese power, even
though the UK position might still currently fall short of the sort of
response that many of those who are most concerned about the conse-
quences of China’s rise would like. This points to a potential fundamental
weakness in the UK strategy centred on the issue of the UK’s commitment
to, and integration with, the region.
416 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

The UK and the political economy of the region

UK ties with the countries that make up the region —as with many other
parts of the world—exist within a somewhat problematical context of
Empire and colonization. This has created some benefits for the UK in
establishing (or maintaining) a physical military presence, quite extensive
legacy transnational economic linkages, linguistic and structural (for
example, bureaucratic and legal) familiarity and the existence of large
regional diasporas in the UK. Using Raab’s (2020a) understanding of the
region as “going east from India,” 10 states are members of the
Commonwealth (India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore,
Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand). But in terms of eco-
nomic and political relations the UK’s integration with the countries of the
Indo-Pacific region varies enormously.

The economic dimension

While raw data for investment can be produced relatively quickly, the pre-
ferred UK government statistics look for the nation of origin of the ultimate
parent company, and not the immediate source of that investment. This is
because of the large amount of investment that takes place via financial
intermediaries and tax havens; for example, the British Virgin and Cayman
Islands. In the Chinese case there is the added problem of how to treat
investment to/and from Hong Kong. As international trade and investment
figures treat the two as separate, they will be treated as such here, but with
the caveat that much of this will originate/end up on the mainland. The
same is true when it comes to trade.
Using ultimate position statistics, we can see that investment into the
UK from Asia more than doubled from $81.98 billion in 2014 to £186.2 bil-
lion in 2018 (ONS, 2020a). Despite the popular focus on China, Japan is by
far the biggest regional investor in the UK, accounting for over half of all
Asian investment in 2018, placing it second in a league table of investors
(with £104.7 billion invested compared to £598.7 billion from first place USA).
The only other regional states to appear in the top 20 are Hong Kong
(9th with £28 billion), India (18th with £12.5 billion) and then China (20th
with £9.5 billion) (ONS, 2020a). To provide some comparative context,
inward investment from North America rose from £363.4 billion to £629.8
billion over the same period, and investment from EU member states rose
from £365.2 to £448.4 billion. Add on the rest of non-EU Europe and the
figure for the continent as a whole was £602 billion in 2018 (ONS, 2020a).
Individual projects can make a substantial difference when it comes to
looking at a single year’s statistics; particularly if it’s a mega investment. But
there is a similar picture when the overall stock of investment is considered
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 417

rather than just annual flows. In terms of the overall stock of investment,
whether you use either an immediate or ultimate beneficiary statistic, then
Asia as a whole is important, but again probably not as important as the dis-
course and debate would suggest. For sake of consistency, in the same year
(2018), with respect to the overall stock of investment, Asia reached a total of
£158.8 billion in 2018, compared to £543.5 billion for North America and £579
billion from EU member states (ONS, 2019a). So, at the end of 2018, EU coun-
tries accounted for 44 percent of the total on the first count, but only 29 per-
cent when adjusted for ultimate beneficiary. When the rest of non-EU Europe
is added, then the two figures for the continent were 66 percent and 39 per-
cent. Conversely, the figure for the Americas rose from 39 percent to 45 per-
cent. The figure for Asia rose too—but only from 10 percent to 12 percent. So,
while the stock of investment is not insignificant, it is much less significant
than popular perceptions of the importance of Chinese, let alone Asian, invest-
ment are for the UK (Ward, 2020).
And it is a similar story for UK investments overseas. Only Hong Kong is
in a list of the top 10 destinations for investment (total stock) in 6th place
with 4.7 percent of the total. Overall, by 2019 Asia—again, broadly
defined—accounted for 12.3 percent of the total UK stock of investment
overseas, compared to 40.2 for the US and 32.8 for the EU (which rises to
40.9 if the rest of non-EU Europe is included) (Ward, 2020).
To put this in context, in 2019 the UK invested only slightly more in
China that it did in Belgium (£101.2 bn compared to £98.4bn) but received
more than double the amount from Belgium than came from China
(£185bn compared to £77.6) (ONS, 2020b). None of this would be surprising
were it not for the largely anti-China UK media discourse that has sur-
rounded Chinese investments, both real and potential.
The situation for trade is a little different. UK imports from and exports
to Asia have increased quite significantly in recently years, by roughly a half
and a third respectively between 2015 and 2018. But this is not in isolation,
and trade with other parts of the world has increased too; for example, if a
33 percent increase in the export of services to Asia sounds impressive, the
60 percent increase in exports to the rest of Europe over the same period is
even more impressive (ONS, 2019b). Japan is the biggest regional market
for the export in services in 8th place in a league table of markets, account-
ing for £7.3 billion of the Asian total. Australia accounts for a further £5.5
billion in ninth place, followed by China with £4.6, Singapore with £3.4
(which of course is a much higher per capita figure than anywhere else),
Hong Kong with £2.8 and India with £2.5. To provide further context, the
number one placed US took £63.2 billion and Germany (2nd) took £18.9 bil-
lion, and collectively exports to Germany, France and the Netherlands were
roughly the same as for the whole of Asia (ONS, 2019b).
418 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

Japan is also the major source of imports of trade in services, in 7th

place with £5.3 billion, with India in the following place with £4.8 billion,
followed by Australia (£2.6), Hong Kong (£2.5) and Singapore (£2 billion).
Again, to give some context, the US in first place exceeds the entire region
combined (with £30 billion), with France in second place providing more than
the top three regional economies combined (£14.6 billion) (ONS, 2019b).
Therefore, for trade in services as well as for investment, Asia is an
important partner for the UK, but far from being the dominant one. If we
analyse trade in goods, however, we see a significant difference. Despite
the focus on the importance of Chinese investment in shaping perceptions
of China it is actually in trade in goods that China is a more significant eco-
nomic partner for the UK; not just in terms of being the most important
regional partner, but more generally too. In 2019, it became the UK’s third
biggest export market having overtaken the Netherlands, France and the
Irish Republic, and the second biggest source of imports having overtaken
the US. China went on to become the number one source of imports in
2021, with a 17.5% increase contrasting with year-on-year falls from the US
and most European states (HM Revenue & Customs, 2022).1 This was partly
because its economy re-opened much earlier than the traditionally more
important export markets in Europe (before partially re-closing again in
2022), and partly because of the type of imports that the pandemic gener-
ated an increased demand for (Partington, 2021).
We can perhaps draw two clear conclusions from this very brief eco-
nomic analysis. First, when it comes to the totality of economic relations,
the EU collectively is still far more important than any individual Indo-
Pacific country, and even the Indo-Pacific region as a whole. Second, when
it comes to trade, it is the country that is increasingly seen as the prob-
lem—China—that is the most important partner by far, rather than other
Indo-Pacific economies that the UK either has or is negotiating free trade
agreements with. And notably, even as the discourse on China in the UK
grew more negative, China’s economic significance actually increased;
imports from China, exports to China, and UK investment in China all grew.
Yet perhaps ironically, the financial flows that seemed to do so much to
spark the renewed and largely negative focus on China—inward investment
into the UK—dropped off significantly after 2016 (Department for
International Trade, 2022). Political discourses and commercial logics don’t
yet (at least) appear to have aligned with each other.

The political dimension

When David Cameron announced in 2015 that, in relation to India, the UK had
not grasped the “true potential of this relationship” (Scott, 2017), it was a
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 419

sentiment that could have been expanded to the region as a whole; or at least,
the region excluding China. Australia and New Zealand of course have historic
ties with the UK and longstanding economic interactions, and in theory are
closely aligned when it comes to fundamental principles guiding international
relations, “democratic” governance and economic structures. Historically
together with the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand formed the
intelligence sharing Five Eyes Alliance in 1947 as part of the policy of contain-
ment of the Soviet Union. In June 2020 the focus of the Five Eyes shifted to the
Indo-Pacific in the context of US fears over the continued rise of China—
although there have been well publicized disputes amongst the Five particu-
larly involving New Zealand’s reticence to condemn certain Beijing policies
(Gardner, 2021). Australia, the UK and the US also formed AUKUS in September
2021 to strengthen alliances and “deepen ties in the Indo-Pacific” (Prime
Minister’s Office, 2021)—although collaboration over nuclear powered submar-
ines soured relations with France. Singapore and Japan are both more import-
ant investment partners for the UK than China (both inward and outward) and
are closely aligned with UK interests on security and political relationships
(FCDO, 2021a; Hosoya, 2019). South Korea, according to former Foreign
Secretary Dominic Raab, “has one of the closest voting records to that of the
UK in any international organization” (Raab, 2020a).
The UK’s “historic” relationship with ASEAN is perhaps best shown by the
fact that the official FCDO “UK-ASEAN factsheet” focuses largely on relation-
ships with individual ASEAN member states rather than with ASEAN as an insti-
tution (FCDO, 2021b). While the UK became a party to the Treaty of Amity and
Cooperation in Southeast Asia, it did not—until recently—have a full-time dip-
lomat responsible for relations with ASEAN (with the Ambassador for Indonesia
also having responsibility for ASEAN). Indeed, the establishment of an
Ambassadorial appointment to ASEAN separate from the Indonesian mission in
2019 marked a very significant change in the relationship which was certainly
previously marked by relative neglect.
Relations with the south Asian subcontinent remain strongly influenced
by the legacy of Empire; a legacy that can create tensions based on past
experiences but also potential opportunities given the size of the Indian
diaspora in the UK and also longstanding economic interactions that have
expanded in particular with India’s economic transformation and growth.
For many years, there was a developmental paternalistic air to much of the
UK’s dealings with India, and this can still be heard in some of the language
used to describe either the relationship or India’s international standing.
Despite UK government rhetoric on the closeness of ties with India, many
prominent Indian ministers including the Foreign Affairs Minister Jaishankar
point to the implicit ‘colonialism’ of the ‘tilt’ noting that, “somewhere
Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the
420 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems”
(Chiriyankandath, 2022). Not only has the Indian sub-continent been a
major recipient of UK aid, but for many years India has been the single big-
gest recipient (FCDO, 2021d). Between 2009-2011 India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh received over 50% of the UK’s overseas aid budget only drop-
ping to 41% in 2014 (FCDO, 2021d).
Wyatt (2016) argues that once India embarked on economic reforms in
the 1991, there was a growing “convergence of interests,” even though the
aid relationship remained important until the announcement of the begin-
ning of the end of UK aid to India in 2012. The New Delhi Declaration 2002
emphasized a new “partnership” between the two, which was upgraded to
a “strategic partnership” in 2004, and an “enhanced partnership” under
David Cameron in 2010 (Scott, 2017). However, on many key issues includ-
ing India/Pakistan tensions, the UK government’s position has been charac-
terized by ambivalence. As Boris Johnson put it in PMQs in 2020, “Our view
… . is that of course we have serious concerns about what is happening
between India and Pakistan but these are pre-eminently matters for those
two governments to settle” (Hansard, 2020).
Whilst the nature of Indian democracy since the election of Modi has
been a cause of concern in the UK, not least in those constituencies with
large proportions of the Indian diaspora community, the fact that both India
and Pakistan are “liberal democracies” (one of the oldest and one of the big-
gest) is said, rather weakly, to provide a “common values” basis for a closer
relationship (British High Commission, 2021). It is notable, though, that these
“common values” have not been very evident in the shape of a common
response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. India abstained from UN resolution
ES-11/1 condemning the invasion; as indeed did the other regional democra-
cies of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. So perhaps it is it’s not so much
the fact that India is a liberal democracy that is important in creating shared
interests, as the fact that one other very large and powerful regional state
isn’t. As Wintour (2021a) argues, “what most of all has recently pulled India
and the UK closer together is not changes to the British cabinet, but a shared
fear of China’s rise.” So, as important as changes to the India-UK relationship
might have been in forming a new basis of that relationship, it is once again
the change in UK government thinking on potential international order tran-
sition that has been the most significant factor in the development of recent
UK foreign policy centred around the Integrated Review.

The Indo-Pacific in post-Brexit UK foreign policy

The Integrated Review of 2021 is the successor to the 2015 Strategic
Defence and Security Review. As such it has been able to incorporate
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 421

changes associated with Brexit and the pandemic and, fundamentally, the
changed relationship between the United States and China. Whilst the
Review reinforces the UK’s commitment to European security, it marks a sig-
nificant change by suggesting that the international order is now frag-
mented and characterized by “intensifying competition between states
over interests, norms and values” (HM Government, 2021, p. 11). In this
“fluid international environment”, the UK is set to play a key role in shaping
the “international order of the future” (HM Government, 2021, p.12). It is in
this context that the Review prioritises the geopolitical shifts associated
with “China’s increased international assertiveness and the growing import-
ance of the Indo-Pacific” (HM Government, 2021, p. 17).
The fundamental message of the Review for the purposes of this article,
is that the ‘tilt’ is important “for economic opportunities,” “for our security,”
and “for our values” (HM Government, 2021, p. 66). Building on this obser-
vation, we suggest that there are four main drivers underpinning the tilt.
The first is that it is an exercise in nation branding and national image pro-
jection. The Integrated Review was pitched as a newly independent UK
being able to make foreign policy decisions that it had previously been
unable to do because of the constraints of EU membership. The Indo-
Pacific is an example of one of the parts of the world that—so the rhetoric
goes—the UK was previously unable to fully develop new relationships
with, containing within it both Commonwealth countries and dynamic
Asian economies. As such, the simple announcement of the ‘tilt’ in itself
served the purpose of demonstrating the ‘independent’ and global reach of
the new Britain. The deployment of the largest naval fleet since the
Falklands War (led by the new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth) to the
region in May 2021 should also be seen as serving a symbolic role, despite
its very real physical presence (Chuter, 2021). In the words of Defence
Minister Ben Wallace (Royal Navy, 2021):
When our Carrier Strike Group sets sail … . it will be flying the flag for
Global Britain—projecting our influence, signalling our power, engaging with
our friends and reaffirming our commitment to addressing the security
challenges of today and tomorrow … . [and] will demonstrate to the world
that the UK is not stepping back but sailing forth to play an active role in
shaping the international system of the 21st Century.

Second, is the need to forge new economic relationships and strengthen

existing economic ties. On one level, rather than creating the opportunity
to forge new deals, Brexit actually created the necessity of doing so, to
replace the Free Trade Agreements that ongoing EU membership would
have given the UK to with South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Vietnam. On
another level, there is the goal of increasing economic ties with regional
states—including potentially by “upgrading” the nature of any trade
422 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

agreement that has been lost through Brexit (for example, the free trade
agreement with Australia), and creating new partnerships (for example, the
trade, investment, and financial cooperation dimensions of the 2030
Roadmap for India-UK Future Relations). Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab
specifically targeted “huge growth opportunities” for UK enterprises in
what he called the “mid-sized players” like South Korea and Vietnam.
Third, is security, and in particular, economic security. The chances of the
UK being drawn into a traditional military conflict in the region or because
of the region are pretty low. Sending the Carrier Fleet to the region does
increase the chances of military spill-over, but even then the prospects of a
security challenge defined in terms of ‘guns, bombs and bullets’ remain
rather low. There are, however, significant potential non-traditional security
challenges. Cyber security is one area where there are both potential
regional sources of dispute and potential alliances on the future character
of cyber governance. Economic (in)security is arguably more important still.
This broad category includes concern about ownership of key UK economic
assets (and indeed at times simply foreign involvement in economic proj-
ects in the UK), and potential disruption to trade through “Indo-Pacific
choke points” (HM Government, 2021, p. 66).
However, there is a fourth, and we would argue more significant, driver
underpinning UK foreign policy in the region. Although the Review
acknowledges that China is an important partner in areas such as pandemic
preparedness and climate control and that the UK will pursue a “positive
economic relationship” with China, the key message of the Review is that
China represents, “the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic
security” (Ibid, p. 62). Given the increasing importance of the region in the
global political economy and the perception that the rise of China has
major implications for “the structure and shape of the international order”
(Ibid, p. 62), the Conservative government has set itself the goal of becom-
ing, “the European partner with the broadest and most integrated presence
in the Indo-Pacific—committed for the long term, with closer and deeper
partnerships, bilaterally and multilaterally” (HM Government, 2021, p. 66).
The Integrated Review is of course peppered with hyperbole and rhet-
oric and there remains considerable doubt over the capacity of the UK to
enact an independent foreign policy in the region. However, the policy
stance becomes clear once the UK position is contextualized in terms of its
role as a ‘soft power adjunct’ to the United States. The Review emphasizes
that the “key strengths” of the UK lie in the areas of “world-leading intelli-
gence and security agencies”, “innovation in science and technology”,
“global leadership in diplomacy and development”, that the “UK has a seat
in every major multilateral organization”, and that it is a “responsible cyber
power” and a “soft power superpower” (HM Government, 2021, pp. 8-9).
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 423

Recent levels of UK military spending cannot secure the UK a prominent

position in the Indo-Pacific in conventional terms. Whilst UK defence spend-
ing at $62.5 billion in 2021 slightly exceeds the spending levels of
Germany, France, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, it is exceeded by Russia and
dwarfed by India ($73.6 billion), China ($270 billion) and way out in front,
the United States ($767.8 billion) (SIPRI, 2021). In March 2021 the Defence
Minister, Ben Wallace, unveiled a five-year defence review which confirmed
that the size of the British army would be reduced to 72,500 (its lowest
level since 1714), the number of naval frigates and destroyers would drop
from 19 to 17 and that the RAF would lose a string of bombers and helicop-
ters. With Navy warships not set to reach 20 until the end of the decade
(compare this to 650 vessels in 1914), countering the rise of China in the
Indo-Pacific according to Wallace “will be achieved by basing two small
patrol vessels in the region from 2021 and a Royal Marine unit from 2023”
(Sabbagh, 2021). In this context it is clear that the UK’s role can only lie in a
soft power contribution to maintaining the institutions and norms of the
international order supporting the material capabilities possessed only by
the United States. In essence, this is the key message of UK foreign policy
under the Conservative government. The championing of the UK as a ‘soft
power superpower’ rests not only the promotion of the Anglo-US culture
industry and the model of democratic governance and institutions (BBC,
British Council, Common Law heritage and Monarchy) but more importantly
on the UK’s diplomatic network, aid programme and extensive membership
of multilateral organisations (UN, NATO, World Bank, IMF, OSCE, G7,
Commonwealth, Council of Europe) and surveillance and intelligence asso-
ciations (Five Eyes, AUKUS and bilateral UK-US intelligence activities
(Harrington & McCabe, 2022)). In this context the recent and unprece-
dented joint address by the heads of the FBI and MI5 in London on the
threat posed by China in the global system was designed to send “the
clearest signal we can on a massive shared challenge” (The Guardian, 2022).

Conclusion: Order transition and the rhetoric of the tilt

The Integrated Review is not the final word on the ‘tilt’ to the Indo-Pacific,
but rather the start of a new conversation about the direction of UK foreign
policy (McDonald, 2021). It is important to recognize that within Whitehall
there are a range of different opinions over the current and future develop-
ment of UK foreign and security policy (Wintour, 2021b). This ambiguity
extends deep into the Conservative party itself — witness the comments
by Dominic Raab (2020a) on the eve of the release of the Review when he
questioned the critical position taken by some of his own party in terms of
actual UK policy:
424 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

I am not quite sure, reflexively compelling as it may be, where your

hawkishness leads you. What is the action you would like us to take that we
have not taken? … . If someone has a better strategy, I would like to hear it
… you need to explain how that is going to take us any further forward.

It is also clear that recent events in Ukraine have given momentum to

what Raab characterizes as the ‘hawkish’ position. The war led to questions
about some of the defence related assumptions in the Integrated Review,
with Truss calling for a new defence review during her short premiership
less than two years after the Integrated Review had been completed. But
this review was not just about responding to the immediate military threat
from Russia. It was also about finding ways of reducing pre-existing fears of
the consequences of being too economically intertwined with
“authoritarian powers like Russia and China” that cannot be trusted and
who might, in Truss’s words “weaponise the global economy” in the future
(Downing Street, 2022). The extent of trade interdependence with China,
and therefore the risk of damage to the UK economy if this became
“weaponised”, is much greater and in many more sectors than the largely
energy-based vulnerabilities in the UK’s economic relationship with Russia.
In addition to concern about Chinese investment in future energy supplies
(for example, in the UK’s nuclear power sector), we can add as examples of
potentially “weaponizable” investments Huawei’s involvement in 5 G infra-
structure already discussed above, and the 2022 decision to force Nexperia
to sell its controlling stake in a UK semiconductor producer on “national
security” grounds (Department for Business & Energy & Industrial Strategy,
2022). The latter order was made using the new National Security and
Investment Act which had come into force at the beginning of 2022. So,
while it might seem to make common sense that the war should have
focussed more attention on Russia as a security threat, for some it actually
resulted in an even greater focus on China than before.
There have also been calls to do even more. A joint M15/FBI address on
the threat from China included in its concerns China “acquiring advantage”
in key technologies. Whilst such advantages might be gained through
‘illegal means’, the address acknowledged that “clandestine espionage
methodology isn’t always necessary” and that joint research projects, com-
mercial technology transfer and so on can also result in “national resilience”
being undermined (McCallum & Wray, 2022). Their call for a joint UK-US
response was echoed in a Centre for Brexit Policy document, with 17 contri-
buting authors including Iain Duncan Smith (former Conservative Party
leader) and Patrick Minford, an academic economist much loved by the
neoliberal wing of the Conservatives (including Liz Truss). The report called
for deepening the links between the US and the UK as part of a general
strategy to counter “China’s threat to world order” (Centre for Brexit Policy,
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 425

2022, p. 47). While the document does not represent official UK foreign pol-
icy, it is not wholly disconnected from UK policy makers, and is a note-
worthy example of some of the ideas circulating in influential political
circles that seek to harden general policy towards China and promote a re-
engagement of the UK with the Indo-Pacific region. This re-engagement
involves strengthening the security architecture of the region (invest in the
Five Power Defence Arrangements and the Quad), greater involvement in
the political architecture of the region (becoming a full member of the
ASEAN regional forum) and building deeper trade relations in the region
particularly through membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive
Trans-Pacific Partnership (Centre for Brexit Policy, 2022, pp. 79-80).
However, the Russian offensive in Ukraine has also revealed significant
fault lines in the UK’s tilt strategy. The ability of the UK to act even as a ‘soft
power superpower’ has been called into question in Europe with the possi-
bility of divergent policies being adopted by Germany and even France.
More significantly in the Indo-Pacific, concerted pressure from the US and
the UK has failed to bring many states into line with Washington’s stance
on Russia. The ‘strong collective response to Russian aggression’ called for
by US Secretary of State Blinken received a cold response from India and
when the US tabled a motion at the UN General Assembly in March 2022
calling for unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces, India was one of 35
states that abstained along with China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and
even Commonwealth member South Africa (Chiriyankandath, 2022).
Although the US has sought to play down the intransigence of India over
the Russian offensive, it highlights a serious contradiction in the UK strat-
egy. In the post-Brexit world, the ‘independent’ policies of a secondary state
in decline may not accord with the ‘independent’ policies of larger and
more powerful states on the ascendent—the rhetoric of soft power super-
power not withstanding. In this respect, the recent comments of Martin
Kettle (2022) on Sunak’s Mansion House speech are entirely apposite:
British foreign policy needs to recognise that the US is in flux, that Britain is
an important country and not a superpower, that its security is at risk
without treaties and military alliances, that its primary arena of engagement,
irrespective of its relationship with the EU, is in Europe, that it is not an
Asian or Pacific power and never will be, and that its international
reputation needs to be rescued from the legacies of empire and Brexit alike.

In this article we have suggested firstly, that the key driver in the UK’s
‘tilt’ to the Indo-Pacific lies in the changing dominant narrative on China
which clearly suggests that China is engaged in challenging the current
‘liberal international order’. Secondly, we have suggested that whilst the
Integrated Review provides a clear justification for the ‘tilt’, the ability of
the UK to establish itself materially as a key force in the region remains
426 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

questionable. Thirdly, we suggested that the fundamental contribution of

the UK to the region lies in playing a ‘soft power adjunct’ role to the United
States. As He and Feng note in this special issue, this is not to be inter-
preted as “passive order taking” since secondary states like the UK can in
theory play a major role as “order shapers” influencing the institutional and
normative parameters of the international order. This is the clear intention
of UK foreign policy towards the region as expressed in the Integrated
Review. There are however two important caveats by way of conclusion.
Firstly, whilst the actions of Russia in the Ukraine have added fuel to the
fire of what Raab calls the ‘hawkish’ camp, recent scholarly research has
suggested that the idea of ‘international order transition’ needs more care-
ful and detailed analysis than it receives in government policy documents.
Breaking down the notion of international order into power, institutions
and norms reveals for He and Feng that whilst China has the potential to
challenge the ‘liberal international order’, there is at present still a signifi-
cant gap between the US and China in the military domain and that the
United States still dominates the institutional pillar of the international
order. On the normative pillar of the order they suggest that both powers
have a patchy record in abiding by international norms with the United
States having a mixed record on abiding by the liberal free trade and open-
ness norms consolidated by the World Trade Organisation. In other words,
there is a need for deeper research on the notion of ‘international order’
and a recognition, historically informed, that all states have “played mul-
tiple roles—as supporter, reformer, challenger or facilitator” in shaping
international regimes.
Finally, even though there is some convergence of opinion on China
across the party divides, we would emphasise that the UK policy ‘tilt’ is in
part the product of currently volatile domestic politics. It is an attempt to
convey a message that the UK is a global actor again and that only a ‘tough
talking’ Conservative government can truly represent the mythical ‘national
interest’ (on the contested nature of the national interest see Bulpitt, 1988).
It is a message clearly meant to undermine a foreign policy stance such as
that presented by the Labour Party in 2019 under the banner of ‘A New
Internationalism’ (Labour Party, 2019) which effectively sought to prioritise
conflict prevention and build peace through international organisations.
The fluctuating fortunes of the current Conservative government do not
however provide a solid basis for a consistent foreign policy—witness
Sunak’s recent language of “robust pragmatism” which is likely to be
reflected in the 2023 “refresh’ of the Integrated Review (Crerar, 2022). The
UK’s tilt strategy is, we hope to have shown, multifaceted playing to a
diverse range of audiences and built upon a number of rather questionable
assumptions about the nature of the international order and the ability of a
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 427

declining secondary state mired in economic and political crisis to effect

any real global change.

Note

1. The big exception being a massive increase in mineral fuels from Norway. It is notable
that imports from Hong Kong dropped significantly as imports from the PRC grew
in 2021.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

References
Allegretti, A., & Ni, V. (2022). Sunak to promise curbs on China as UK’s ‘biggest long-
term threat’. The Guardian. 24th July. Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://www.
theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/24/sunak-to-promise-curbs-on-china-as-uks-biggest-
long-term-threat.
Breslin, S. (2021). China risen? Studying Chinese global power. Bristol: Bristol
University Press.
British High Commission. (2021). UK and India announce new era in bilateral rela-
tionship. 4th May. Retrieved May 20, 2021, from https://www.gov.uk/government/
news/uk-and-india-announce-new-era-in-bilateral-relationship.
Bulpitt, J. (1988). Rational politicians and Conservative statecraft in the open polity.
In P. Bryd (Ed.), British foreign policy under thatcher (pp. 180–205). Deddington:
Philip Allan.
Centre for Brexit Policy. (2022). Defining Britain’s post-brexit role in the world. London:
Centre for Brexit Policy.
China Research Group. (2021). In conversation with Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles. China
Research Group, 2nd Feb. Retrieved March 13, 2021, from https://chinare-
searchgroup.org/events/chair-cbbc.
Chiriyankandath, J. (2022). Understanding India’s approach to the Russia-Ukraine War:
Realpolitik. Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://commonwealth-opinion.blogs.sas.
ac.uk/2022/understanding-indias-approach-to-the-russia-ukraine-war-realpolitik/.
Chuter, A. (2021). British name enormous carrier strike group heading for the Indo-
Pacific. Defense News, 26th April. Retrieved May 21, 2021, from https://www.
defensenews.com/global/europe/2021/04/26/british-name-enormouscarrier-strike-
group-heading-for-the-indo-pacific/.
Clinton, H. (2011). America’s Pacific century. Foreign Policy, 11th October 2011.
Retrieved January 4, 2012, from https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/americas-
pacific-century/.
Cox, R. (1987). Production, power and world order. New York: Columbia University Press.
Crerar, P. (2022). Sunak to set out “evolutionary” approach to dealing with Russia
and China. 27 November. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://www.the-
guardian.com/world/2022/nov/27/sunak-to-set-out-evolutionary-approach-to-dealing-
with-russia-and-china.
428 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. (2022). National Investment
and Security Act 2021: Publication of Notice of Final Order. 16th November.
Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/gov-
ernment/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1118369/NWF_Final_Order_
Public_Notice_16112022.pdf.
Department for International Trade. (2022). Trade and investment factsheets: China.
1st August 2022. Retrieved August 1, 2022, from https://assets.publishing.service.
gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1094983/china-
trade-and-investment-factsheet-2022-08-01.pdf.
Deudney, D., & Ikenberry, G. J. (1999). The nature and sources of liberal international
order. Review of International Studies, 25(2), 179–196. doi:10.1017/S0260210599001795
Dockrill, S. (2002). Britain’s retreat from East of Suez: The choice between Europe and
the world? Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Dodds, K., & Elden, S. (2008). Thinking ahead: Daivd Cameron, the Henry Jackson
Society and British neo-conservatism. The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations, 10(3), 347–363. doi:10.1111/j.1467-856x.2008.00327.x
Dowden, O. (2020). Statement on telecoms to the House of Commons. Department
for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 14th July, Retrieved December 9, 2020, from
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/digital-culture-media-andsport-secretarys-
statement-on-telecoms.
Downing Street. (2022). “Prime Minister to tell UN General Assembly – I will lead a
new Britain for a new era”, Downing Street Press Release, 21st September,
Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://www.ukpol.co.uk/press-release-prime-
minister-to-tell-un-general-assembly-i-will-lead-a-new-britain-for-a-new-era/.
FCDO. (2021a). Singapore-UK joint statement 2021: A partnership for the future. 4th
March. Retrieved April 28, 2021, from https://www.gov.uk/government/publica-
tions/singapore-uk-joint-statement-2021-a-partnership-for-thefuture/singapore-uk-
joint-statement-2021-a-partnership-for-the-future.
FCDO. (2021b). UK-ASEAN Factsheet. 4th May. Retrieved May 25, 2021, from https://
www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukasean-factsheet/uk-asean-factsheet.
FCDO. (2021c). UK sanctions perpetrators of gross human rights violations in
Xinjiang, alongside EU, Canada and US. 22nd March, Retrieved May 12, 2021, from
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-sanctions-perpetrators-of-grosshuman-
rights-violations-in-xinjiang-alongside-eu-canada-and-us.
FCDO. (2021d). Statistics on International Development: Final UK aid spend 2020.
Foreign Affairs Select Committee. (2019a). A cautious embrace: Defending democ-
racy in an age of autocracies. 5th November. Retrieved February 3, 2020, from
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201919/cmselect/cmfaff/109/109.pdf.
Foreign Affairs Select Committee. (2019b). China and the rules-based international
system sixteenth report of session 2017– 19”, 26th March. Retrieved June 1, 2019,
from https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmfaff/612/612.
pdf.
Freymann, E. (2021). How could the UK respond to one belt one road (OBOR)?. China
Research Group, 11th March. Retrieved May 26, 2021, from https://chinare-
searchgroup.org/research/belt-and-road.
Gardner, F. (2021). Five eyes: Is the alliance in trouble over China. 4 May. Retrieved
July 29, 2022, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-56970640.
Geddes, T. (2020). UK-China relations: From gold to dust”, The Diplomat, government
press release, “UK Government announces business measures over Xinjiang
human rights abuses”, 12th January 2021. Retrieved March 24, 2021, from https://
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 429

www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-announces-business-measures-over-
xinjiang-human-rightsabuses.
Global Times Editorial. (2015). Osborne’s Xinjiang trip shows pragmatism. Global
Times, 25th September. Retrieved July 28, 2022, from http://www.globaltimes.cn/
content/944389.shtml.
Groves, J. (2022). Rishi and Liz go to war over China. Daily Mail, 24th July. Retrieved
August 1, 2022, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11044367/Rishi-
Sunak-attacks-Liz-Truss-Beijing-camp-hits-accusing-soft-China.html.
Grylls, G. (2022). Liz Truss will declare China an official threat for the first time. The
Times, 29th August. Retrieved September 1, 2022, from https://www.thetimes.co.
uk/article/liz-truss-will-declare-china-an-official-threat-for-the-first-time-3bk7jwqjx.
Hansard. (2020). Engagements: Volume 785”, 9th December. Retrieved February 5,
2021, from https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2020-12-09/debates/B62126B2-
4224-4830-9347-4174775A88E7/Engagements.
Harrington, J., & McCabe, R. (2022). The case for co-operation: The future of the US-
UK intelligence alliance. Retrieved July 31, 2022, from https://www.csis.org/ana-
lysis/case-cooperation-future-us-uk-intelligence-alliance.
Harris, J., Neal, R., & McConalogue, J. (2021). Understanding UK strategic dependence
on Chinese investment: The case for ‘partial decoupling’”. Civitas, January, p. 4.
Retrieved March 13, 2021, from https://www.civitas.org.uk/publications/under-
standing-uk-strategic-dependence-on-chinese-investment/.
He, K. (2021). Contesting revisionism. Oxford: OUP.
HM Government Press Release. (2021). UK Government announces business meas-
ures over Xinjiang human rights abuses. 12th January 2021. Retrieved March 24,
2021, from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-announces-
business-measures-over-xinjiang-human-rightsabuses.
HM Government. (2021). Global Britain in a competitive age The integrated review of
security, defence, development and foreign policy, 16th March, p. 22. Retrieved
March 16, 2021, from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/
system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/969402/TheIntegratedReviewofSecurityDefence
DevelopmentandForeignPolicy.pdf.
HM Revenue and Customs. (2022). UK overseas trade in goods statistics summary of
2021 trade in goods. 11th February 2022. Retrieved August 1, 2022, from https://
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_
data/file/1053856/OTS_2021_Annual_Summary.pdf.
HM Treasury. (2015). Chancellor makes historic first visit to China’s North West. 23rd
September. Retrieved June 4, 2016, from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/
chancellor-makes-historic-first-visit-to-chinas-north-west.
Honeyman, V. (2017). From liberal interventionism to liberal conservatism. British
Politics, 12(1), 42–62. doi:10.1057/bp.2015.46
Hosoya, Y. (2019). Defending the liberal international order: The UK–Japan partnership
in an uncertain world. (John Nilsson-Wright (Eds.), pp. 73–83). London: Royal
Institute of International Affairs
House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee. (2020). ‘Viral immunity – the
FCOs role in Building a Coalition Against COVID-1 9”, 2nd April 2020. https://com-
mittees.parliament.uk/committee/78/foreign-affairscommittee.
International Relations and Defence Committee. (2021). “The UK and China’s
Security and Trade Relationship: A Strategic Void”, 10th September. Retrieved
October 3 2021 from https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5802/ldselect/ldin-
trel/62/6202.htm
430 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

James, W. (2021). Global Britain’s strategic problem East of Suez. European Journal of
International Security, 6(2), 171–189. doi:10.1017/eis.2020.24
Johnson, B. (2016). The Foreign Secretary delivers a speech on the UK’s policy in the
Gulf at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain” 9th December. Retrieved November 13,
2020, from https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretaryspeech-
britain-is-back-east-of-suez.
Kettle, M. (2022). British foreign policy is in flux – we need more than Sunak’s prag-
matic blandness. The Guardian, 1, December. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/01/seismic-moment-britain-
foreign-policy-rishi-sunak.
Klinger, M., & McConalogue, J. (2021). Rethinking the UKs relationship with China:
How to address key challenges to British economic security posed by the nascent
superpower”, Civitas, 28th April. Retrieved April 29, 2021, from https://www.civitas.
org.uk/publications/rethinking-the-uks-relationship-with-china/.
Labour Foreign Policy Group. (2022). In brief: Labour’s approach to China. Retrieved
December 10, 2022, from https://www.labourforeignpolicy.org.uk/china-briefing-
sept-2022.
Labour Party. (2019). A new internationalism. Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://
labour.org.uk/manifesto-2019/a-new-internationalism/.
Lunn, J., & Curtis, J. (2020). The UK-China relationship. House of Commons Briefing
Paper No 9004, 14th September. Retrieved January 3, 2021, from https://common-
slibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9004/.
McCallum, K., & Wray, C. (2022). Joint address by M15 and FBI heads. 6th July,
Retrieved August 1, 2022, from https://www.mi5.gov.uk/news/speech-by-mi5-
and-fbi.
McDonald, S. (2021). “Uncorrected oral evidence” to The House of Lords Select
Committee on International Relations and Defence, The UK’s security and trade
relationship with China”, 18th March. Retrieved May 25, 2021, from https://com-
mittees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1930/html/.
ONS. (2019a). Foreign direct investment involving UK companies: 2018. Office of
National Statistics, 3rd December. Retrieved March 22, 2021, from https://www.
ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/foreigndirec-
tinvestmentinvolvingukcompanies/2018.
ONS. (2019b). UK trade in services by partner country experimental data: January to
March 2019. 24th July. Retrieved May 5, 2021, from https://www.ons.gov.uk/busi-
nessindustryandtrade/internationaltrade/bulletins/exportsandimportsstatisticsby-
countryforuktradeinservices/januarytomarch2019.
ONS. (2020a). UK foreign direct investment, trends and analysis: August 2020. Office
of National Statistics. 3rd August 2020. Retrieved March 22, 2021, from https://
www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/articles/ukforeign-
directinvestmenttrendsandanalysis/august2020.
ONS. (2020b). UK balance of payments: The Pink Book 2020, 30th October. Retrieved
February 14, 2021, from https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/bal-
anceofpayments/bulletins/unitedkingdombalanceofpaymentsthepinkbook/2020.
Partington, R. (2021). China replaces Germany as UK’s biggest import market. The
Guardian, 25th May. Retrieved May 27, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/
business/2021/may/25/uk-trade-with-eu-falls-by-23-in-first:quarter-as-brexit-and-
covid-hit.
 THE PACIFIC REVIEW 431

Prime Minister’s Office. (2021). UK, US and Australia launch new security partnership.
21st September. Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://www.gov.uk/government/
news/uk-us-and-australia-launch-new-security-partnership.
Raab, D. (2020a). Oral evidence: Work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and
Development Office, HC 253. Foreign Affairs Committee, 6th October 2020.
Retrieved February 13, 2021, from https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/
1000/pdf/.
Raab, D. (2020b). Comments are available from a number of sources, including.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-uk-china-dominic-raab-
huawei-businessa9469351.html.
Raab, D. (2021). Statement about the treatment of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
22nd March, Hansard. Retrieved May 26, 2021, from https://hansard.parliament.uk/
commons/2021-03-22/debates/7E304076-1DAF482C-B4AD-FFFDB8813E53/Human
RightsUpdate.
Riley-Smith, B., Oliphant, R., & Mendick, R. (2022). How Rishi Sunak led global effort
to soften stance on China. The Telegraph, 15th November.
Rogelja, I., & Tsimonis, K. (2020). Narrating the China Threat: Securitising Chinese
Economic Presence in Europe. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 13(1),
103–133. doi:10.1093/cjip/poz019
Royal Navy. (2021). Carrier strike group deployment to visit 40 countries. Royal Navy/
MoD, 26th April. Retrieved May 21, 2021, from https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/
news-and-latest-activity/news/2021/april/26/210426-csg21-deployment.
Sabbagh, D. (2021). UK army, navy and RAF all to be cut back, defence review con-
firms. Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/
mar/22/uk-army-navy-and-raf-all-to-be-cut-back-defence-review-confirms.
Scott, D. (2017). The rise of India: UK perspectives. International Affairs, 93(1), 165–
188. doi:10.1093/ia/iiw007
Sedwill, M. (2021). “Uncorrected oral evidence” to The House of Lords Select
Committee on International Relations and Defence, The UK’s security and trade
relationship with China”, 18th March. Retrieved May 25, 2021, from https://com-
mittees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1930/html/.
SIPRI. (2021). Military Expenditure Database. Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://
milex.sipri.org/sipri.
Stubely, P. (2021). China now owns £143bn in UK assets, from nuclear power to
pubs and schools. The Independent, 3rd May. Retrieved May 27, 2021, from https://
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/china-now-owns-ps143bn-in-uk-assets-
from-nuclearpower-to-pubs-and-schools-b1841056.html.
Sunak, R. (2022). PM speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet: 28 November 2022.
Retrieved December 11, 2002, from https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/
pm-speech-to-the-lord-mayors-banquet-28-november-2022.
The Guardian. (2022). FBI and MI5 leaders give unprecedented joint warning on
Chinese spying. Retrieved July 31, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/
world/2022/jul/06/fbi-mi5-china-spying-cyberattacks-business-economy.
Timsit, A. (2021). Stephen Kinnock, the British opposition’s China man. Quartz, 23rd
August, Retrieved November 4, 2021, from https://qz.com/2047469/stephen-kin-
nock-the-uk-oppositions-china-man.
Truss, L. (2022). UN Human Rights Chief’s Report on Xinjiang, China: Foreign
Secretary’s Statement. Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://www.gov.uk/
government/news/foreign-secretary-statement-following-publication-of-un-
human-rights-chiefs-report-on-xinjiang.
432 S. BRESLIN AND P. BURNHAM

Tugendhat, T. (2020). ‘Beijing uses toxic brew’, Mail on Sunday, 5 April. Retrieved
September 5, 2020, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8188239/TOM-
TUGENDHAT-Beijing-uses-toxic-brew-lies-fear-maintain-power.html.
UKNCC. (2022). UKNCC message from our chairman. Retrieved December 8, 2022,
from https://ukncc.org/our-story.
Ward, M. (2020). Foreign Direct Investment Statistics, House of Commons Library
Briefing Paper CBP-8534, 23rd December. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/
research-briefings/cbp-8534/.
Webb, D. (2022). Progress on UK free trade agreement negotiations. House of
Commons Library Research Briefing, 2nd December. Retrieved December 10, 2022,
from https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9314/.
Wintour, A. (2021a). UK faces difficult path as it resumes courtship with India. The
Guardian, 6th April. Retrieved May 4, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2021/apr/06/uk-faces-difficult-path-as-it-resumescourtship-with-indiaaccessed.
Wintour, P. (2021b). Ex-Foreign Office chief reveals Whitehall tussle over China
policy. The Guardian, 18th March. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://www.the-
guardian.com/politics/2021/mar/18/ex-foreign-office-chief-reveals-whitehall-tussle-
over-china-policy.
Wolf, M. (2018). Donald Trump declares trade war on China. Financial Times, 8 May.
Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://www.ft.com/content/dd2af6b0-4fc1-11e8-
9471-a083af05aea7.
Wyatt, A. (2016). India and the United Kingdom: Finding a new equilibrium. In Sumit
Ganguly, (Ed.), Engaging the world: Indian foreign policy since 1947 (pp. 225–244).
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.