17 Mar Japan a key player in UK’s tilt to the Indo-Pacific – POLITICO

Director of the British Foreign Policy Group, Sophia Gaston, spoke to POLITICO on the future of UK-Japan relations in the aftermath of the publication of the Integrated Review.

In trying to figure out what its post-Brexit role in the world was going to be, Sophia Gaston, director of the British Foreign Policy Group, said Britain “looked to examples around the world that would provide tried and tested pathways.”

Japan was one of the countries the U.K. examined, she said, because it had “provided an interesting model for a confident, dynamic nation that had thoroughly adapted to the challenges of the 21st century.” Australia was another looked at quite closely, she added.

“Positive public opinion [in Britain] towards Japan and how it’s regarded as an international actor has increased by around 10 percentage points in the last year alone,” Gaston said. She thinks this is something the British government is well aware of.

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