Since taking office, Britain’s coalition government has gotten plenty of bad press. U-turns, scandals and a double-dip recession have accompanied a slippery slide in public opinion. But this government initiated one extremely positive change, which the media has unsurprisingly failed to pick up on: a shift in foreign policy from one that upheld the idea of a unipolar power to one that is up to date with reaching out to the globalized multipolar world that we live in.
The present Government was quick to start building ties with emerging economies. David Cameron wasted no time, visiting with the BRIC countries within the first few months of his premiership and leading the greatest trade mission to China in 200 years. The UK exports around 30% of its GDP, and the current Government has worked hard to “bang the drum for British business” up until now. The Foreign Office’s ministerial team alone made over 180 overseas trips in 2011, mostly to promote trade. Of course, critics dismiss this as buttering up to new money, but they fail to understand why the government is only right to do so.
The nature of international diplomacy has been changing dramatically. Military power is becoming less significant in the face of economic power. The world is focusing less on alliances for defense purposes, and is placing greater emphasis on building mutually beneficial relationships. The culmination of regional blocs is changing the way diplomacy works from interacting on a bilateral level to working with regions.
Relations with many countries were neglected by the UK over the past few decades. Last April, William Hague was the first British Foreign Secretary to visit Vietnam in 17 years and became the first British Foreign Secretary ever to visit Mauritania in October. Kyrgyzstan never had a British embassy until the past year. Reaching out to such countries matters a great deal. The impacts of globalization means that developing countries are looking less to the West for help and guidance and are beginning to develop independently on their own terms. Modernization has ceased to mean Westernization, and it is in the interest of the UK to work with such states and learn to understand their own ways of doing things, rather than to expect them to adopt the Western way.
It has recognized the need to invest in ensuring the security of failed states and states that pose a threat to Britain’s own national security. On Somalia, it stepped up to the plate by calling a conference that brought world leaders together in a concerted effort to tackle the stability issues that could have repercussions on global security.
Without trying to side with one political faction over the other, I don’t believe that we’ve given the Government enough credit for recognizing the need to engage not only bilaterally with the countries with which the UK has a prevailing economic and historic interconnectedness, but to use diplomacy as a means to reach out on a global level. I hope that future UK administrations pick up on what this government is doing right and keep up an intensified engagement with the world as a whole in the future.
Image: EPA
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