UK “ready and able to mobilise in support of Asia Pacific allies friends and partners”

The Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond gave a speech on the UK in Asia Pacific at the S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore.

The full text of the speech can be read here.

Here are a couple of extracts:

Our partnerships in Asia rest on three pillars:

1. strong people-to-people links and deep bilateral relationships across the Asia Pacific region;

2. a shared vision of free trade and economic openness; and

3. common recognition of our responsibilities to maintain the rules-based international system which protects our shared interests.

The UK has an important stake in Asian security…As a nuclear power with one of the largest defence budgets in the world and membership of the P5 and United Nations and of NATO;…and as a trading nation, conscious that £3 trillion worth of trade passes through the South China Sea each year; Britain is also a party, alongside Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand to the Five Powers Defence Arrangements – still the only formal multilateral defence arrangements in South East Asia. That means we are ready and able to mobilise in support of Asia Pacific allies friends and partners…