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Owen Jenkins
Jakarta ●
Sat, Dec 17, 2022
This week the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary James Smart set out his vision for the future of Britain’s long-term relations with countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The UK will work to build stronger diplomatic and economic ties with new allies, which will be crucial in the future. This approach will build on our successful work with partner nations in recent decades of relative peace and prosperity to combat poverty around the world, reduce conflict deaths and promote growth internationally.
Indonesia is central to this work, and the UK’s relationship with our Indonesian partners has grown stronger in recent years. Its Group of 20 presidency expressed the world’s respect for Indonesia and its appreciation for President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s patient diplomacy in the face of enormous challenges.
The UK will seek to promote development, defence, technology, cyber security, climate change adaptation and environmental protection partnerships, while strengthening a meaningful relationship with Indonesia based on mutual benefit and a shared recognition of free trade and territorial sovereignty.
The post-1945 international system, including the United Nations, enabled an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity, but we are living in a critical period when the pace of change is accelerating with hurricane force, and its principles are being challenged. The international order, most visibly in global instability due to Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.
The UK and Indonesia are celebrating their 73rd anniversaryrd Anniversary of diplomatic relations. We have achieved a lot in almost three quarters of a century. Our great friendship was strengthened in April this year, when our Foreign Ministers agreed the UK-Indonesia Roadmap.
This reflects the wide breadth of our links, and includes commitments to cooperate and protect common interests in areas as diverse as climate change, development, conservation, technology and cyber security.
And all that activity is underpinned by our shared commitment to an open, inclusive and rules-based multilateral and regional system based on international law, including democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The vitality of the UK-Indonesia partnership has been demonstrated by the concrete and successful events and collaborations we have seen in recent months. We are pleased to support Indonesia’s successful G20 presidency, which has taken important initiatives including the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP).
This country-led partnership will help Indonesia in its ambition to drive a rapid energy transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable sources. The transition will support not only enhanced climate action, but also economic growth, new skilled jobs, reduced pollution and a resilient, prosperous future for Indonesians.
At the B20 summit, British and Indonesian partners made agreements and declarations in areas such as transport, education, clean growth, environmental development and electric vehicles. Most notably, the UK and Indonesian governments signed a letter of intent to work together on railway development cooperation, particularly the Jakarta MRT project, for which the UK export credit agency, UK Export Finance, has expressed interest in financing up to US$1.25 billion. billion
The growing number of UK partnerships with Indonesia follows the successful first ministerial meeting of the UK-Indonesia Joint Economic and Trade Committee in February 2022, which was established to promote and develop trade, investment and economic cooperation between our two countries.
It also follows the signing of the UK-Indonesia MoU on investment cooperation in October 2022, which aims to increase two-way investment in value-added minerals, energy transition and life sciences.
Our bilateral cooperation on climate change is going from strength to strength. The agreement to work together to support Indonesia’s goals on forests and land use, signed in October this year, is just the latest installment in more than 20 years of cooperation.
We applaud Indonesia’s international leadership on climate and environmental issues, including its ambitious Forest and Land Use Net Sink 2030 target and the establishment of the new SVLK Timber Standard, which seeks to strengthen assurances of the legality and sustainability of Indonesia’s timber.
Cyber has quickly become a prominent area of cooperation in UK-Indonesian relations. We signed a Cyber Security MoU in 2018, noting our shared interest in maintaining a free, open, peaceful and secure cyberspace. Over the past few years, the UK has worked with the Indonesian government to improve cyber security regulations for the banking sector; protect the vital field of telemedicine; and delivers information security through drills and training. I look forward to strengthening this work at the second UK-Indonesia Cyber Dialogue early next year in London.
We are deepening our people-to-people connections in Indonesia and supporting human capital development through collaboration in education, English language, arts and culture, led by the British Council.
With a rapidly growing population and an increasing share of global wealth, we recognize and welcome the fact that countries like Indonesia will play a much larger role in shaping the way the world sees itself in the coming century. They will have a more powerful voice on the global stage and the Foreign Secretary this week outlined Britain’s ambition to build closer ties with these partner countries and territories, not just for now, but for decades to come.
Together, we will provide a credible and reliable alternative to countries like Russia, which actively and aggressively disrupt the global order. Of course, the UK will maintain existing strong relationships with allies, but it will also look to new partnerships with countries that are regionally influential, growing prosperous, happy to find their own ways in their own interests and want an expanded voice on the world stage. . These future powers will be crucial in the coming years and the UK will pursue future-focused mutually beneficial partnerships with them as they do so, through patient diplomacy and tailor-made offers of trade, development assistance, expertise, cultural links, security and strong bilateral ties. diplomatic relations.
The UK’s offer to these future partner countries will be tailored to their needs and the UK’s strengths and backed up with reliable sources of infrastructure investment.
In the past we may have been too practical, too impatient. Now we will commit to the long term with strategic endurance and foreign policy, constantly planning for tomorrow, scanning the horizon and preparing ourselves for the next 10, 15 and 20 years.
Our relationship with Indonesia is already one of long-term commitment and cooperation. I look forward to helping make it even stronger in 2023 and beyond.
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The author is the British Ambassador to Indonesia and Timor Leste.
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