SHAPING THE 21ST CENTURY TOGETHER
The importance of the Indo-Pacific region in economic and political terms has increased markedly. With its policy guidelines for the Indo-Pacific, Germany is setting out the course for its future policy on the region
MORE than half the world’s population live i n countries around the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. The region now accounts for almost half of the global gross domestic product and gaining in economic and political importance.
In recent decades, countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam have seen rapid economic growth. At the same time, the strategic competition in the region is increasing.
The Indo-Pacific is becoming key to shaping the international order in the 21st century. Asean lies at the very centre of the region. Its relations to both Germany and the European Union are growing ever closer. Hopefully, by the end of 2020, we will be able to form a strategic partnership.
Shifting geopolitical power structures in the Indo-Pacific have a direct impact on Germany and the EU. Our economies are closely connected through global supply chains. Major trading routes pass through the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea and the Pacific.
If conflicts in the region arose, it would have immediate repercussions for Europe and Germany. Open markets and free trade are crucial for Germany as a trading nation.
The share of the broader region, including South and East Asia, in Germany’s trade balance has risen steadily in recent decades and now amounts to more than 20 per cent of our total trade in goods or just under €420 billion (2019).
But rapid economic growth in the Indo-Pacific region also brings about rising greenhouse gas emissions as a challenge for the global climate and our planet’s ecosystem. Our goal must be to ensure environmentally friendly and socially compatible growth in the Indo-Pacific region.
Our fresh policy guidelines for the Indo-Pacific region have been largely inspired by the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific. We share the same view on the region as a space for inclusive cooperation and engagement, and not containment.
Germany and the Asean members form relations based on partnership and common interests, which is why it is high time that we become full-fledged strategic partners.
Not only during the Covid-19 pandemic has it become obvious that multilateralism is more important than ever before.
Germany and the EU are — as is Asean — committed to the further integration of the Indo-Pacific region into multilateral organisations and forums, such as the G20 and to the promotion of regional multilateral structures in the spirit of true partnership and a level-playing field.
Multilateral agreements are the most effective way to make progress in climate and environmental protection, rules-based trade, disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation, as well as the protection of human rights.
As member of the EU and current presidency of the Council of the European Union, Germany will strengthen the role of the EU as a partner of Asean in close cooperation with its EU partners.
To this end, we will spare no effort to fill a new Strategic Partnership between Asean and the EU with life and substance, including a more substantial contribution to security and stability. As a matter of principle, we are committed to protecting and safeguarding the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region.
This is in particular true for supporting a substantive and legally binding Code of Conduct between China and the Asean members for the South China Sea, based on the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Seas; monitoring UN sanctions against North Korea; and, offering our assistance in the mediation of regional conflicts with humanitarian implications.
To tackle the common challenge for the world’s climate, we intend to step up our cooperation with partners in the Indo-Pacific region in all aspects of climate policy, from adaptation to climate change, protection of biodiversity, to promoting renewable energies and energy efficiency.
We will look for collaboration — and offer our assistance — to substantially reduce emissions, in line with overall efforts of the EU to achieve climate commitments with partners in the region which go beyond the current obligations.
We will also increase bilateral and regional cooperation to reduce marine litter and to protect marine ecosystems.
Last but not least, we are committed to expanding our projects on low-emission and sustainable palm oil development with relevant producer countries, with an emphasis on supporting smallholders.
And as the region’s share in Germany’s and the EU’s trading balance is steadily growing, we emphasise again the importance of a coherent network of Free and Comprehensive Trade Agreements in addition to a comprehensive EU-Asean agreement.
Through these agreements, we will be able to eliminate existing obstacles to trade and investment on both sides, as well as to agree on important environmental and social standards, climate protection and competition policy, subsidies and the protection of intellectual property.
The lesson of the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be to “deglobalise” our supply chains and trade relations, but rather to diversify them and make them more resilient.
We hope that by opening this new chapter of our cooperation with the region, we will be able to contribute to a secure, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region, with Asean as a central player. The Indo-Pacific region is important, not only as Germans, but as Europeans.