British think tank Policy Exchange has launched a new
international commission on the Indo-Pacific led by the former
Canadian Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Stephen Harper.
The Indo-Pacific Commission will include* diplomats, politicians
and military and civil leaders drawn from the United Kingdom, the
United States and across the Indo-Pacific region – including
Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore.
The aim of the Commission is to write the blueprint for a new
strategic approach to the region, examining questions of trade,
diplomacy, politics, defence and security that centre on the
Indo-Pacific.
It is the first UK-led effort to assemble a group of diverse and
experienced policy-makers to discuss a new approach to the way
responsibility for the rules-based order is shared across this
strategically important region. In this era, Policy Exchange
argues, isolated positions are vulnerable places.
The Indo-Pacific Commission is set up in the tradition of
American “Blue Ribbon” panels. Regional perspectives are vital to
sound strategy-making – and a diversity of viewpoints lies at the
heart of the programme. The Commission will produce a strategy
that enables practical methods of co-operation to demonstrate the
strength of shared regional perspectives.
The Commission will:
- Help shape a national and international consensus on the
nature of the challenges to world stability and prosperity
emanating from the Indo-Pacific, and foster new partnerships.
- Help position Britain, given its diplomatic experience, to
act as a new focus for alliance-building among independent states
committed to the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific. As a source of
high-level thought and political leadership, it will establish
vital new links between key policy-makers in the region.
- Strengthen the Special Relationship along the Asia-Pacific
axis and increase the relevance of British advice and
coordination in this area in Washington D.C.
- Provide a public forum for the exchange of views at the
highest non-official level.
The Commission’s work will be comprised of a series of targeted
events, bringing together key stakeholders across the
policy-making establishment and Asia specialists; and a stream of
written output in the form of policy briefings, backgrounders,
and analytical reports.
Both the events and the written work will stretch
across three broad policy areas:
- Indo-Pacific trade, economics and technology developments,
including novel issues of industrial “decoupling”, IP, digital
standards, technology and science policy.
- Indo-Pacific domestic and international politics and
diplomacy, particularly with regard to community formats and
summit mechanisms to reinforce the rules-based international
order.
- Indo-Pacific defence and security issues, ranging from “hard
power” and strategic stability to information/political warfare,
cyber security and renewed concerns about biological weapons and
health security.
* The Commission will be led by the former Canadian Prime
Minister, the Rt Hon Stephen Harper and will include diplomats,
business leaders, politicians and military and civil leaders:
Koji Tsuruoka (Japan: former Japanese Ambassador to the UK),
Murray McCully (New Zealand: former Foreign Minister), Lt Gen
In-Bum Chun (South Korea: decorated South Korean military
veteran, Brookings Visiting Fellow), Hon Alexander Downer
(Australia: former Foreign Minister, former Australian High
Commissioner to the UK and Chairman of Policy Exchange), ,
(UK: former Chairman of the EU Financial Affairs
Sub-Committee in the House of Lords), Rt Hon Sir (UK: former
Defence Secretary), Ely Ratner (US: Executive Vice President and
Director of Studies, Centre for a New American Security – and
former Deputy National Security Advisor to then Vice President
Joe Biden; Rt Hon
(UK: Labour Peer, former NATO General Secretary), Rt Hon Marquess
of Salisbury (UK: former Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House
of Lords), (UK: Conservative Member of Parliament), Samir
Saran (India: President, Observer Research Foundation, New
Delhi), Nadia Schadlow (US: former Deputy National Security
Advisor for Strategy), Yahya Cholil Staquf (Indonesia: General
Secretary of the Supreme Council of the Nahdlatul Ulama, the
world’s largest Muslim organisation); Japan’s chief negotiator
for the Trans-Pacific Partnership), (UK: former
Head of GCHQ), Michael Auslin (US: Payson J. Treat Distinguished
Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford
University), C Raja Mohan (Singapore: Director, Institute of
Asian Studies).
