Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a summit meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on January 31. (©Sankei/Ataru Haruna)
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As ministers, defense chiefs, and strategists gather this weekend for the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, discussions will naturally turn to how partners can sustain meaningful engagement in the Indo-Pacific—particularly in Northeast Asia, where strategic challenges are intensifying.
The tone set in the coming days will be aimed not only at influencing regional expectations, but also at highlighting and showing support for the long-term habits of cooperation that underpin stability.
For the United Kingdom, being present and actively engaged in the region is central to demonstrating our ideas and vision of what a consistent and trusted partner in the Indo-Pacific looks like, acts like, and can offer to the region.
For a significant time now, and particularly in recent months, the UK has invested time, personnel, and policy focus in practical cooperation that strengthens shared security.
Demonstrating Commitment Through Action
On the eve of this year's Shangri-La Dialogue, two activities serve well to illustrate this commitment: Exercise Bersama Shield, carried out under the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA), and the expanding portfolio of UK-led cyber and diplomatic engagement across the region. These efforts complement the UK's deepening strategic partnership with Japan, with whom we share interests, values and a long-term vision for global and regional stability.
Bersama Shield, an exercise which brought together Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK for combined air, land, maritime and cyber training, reflects the FPDA's ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
This year's iteration involved more than 1,000 personnel in a variety of exercise activities and, for the first time, included an Enhanced Engagement Activity drawing over 100 participants from academia, government, and the military. Such cross-sector dialogue is increasingly important: modern security challenges—from contested air and maritime spaces to the complexities of cyberspace—require cooperation that spans sectors and borders.
These lessons resonate particularly strongly in Northeast Asia, where the UK and Japan are working more closely than ever to address shared challenges.
Strengthening Cyber Resilience
The UK's contribution and work supporting regional cyber resilience strongly underscores this approach. Defence Cyber Marvel, held in Singapore, convened 600 cyber specialists as part of a broader exercise involving more than 2,500 participants from 29 countries—including a joint UK-Japan team.
Cyber threats do not respect borders, making the need for collective preparedness and the sharing of expertise ever more essential. For Japan and the UK—two of the world's most digitized economies—cooperation in this domain is becoming one of the defining features of our partnership.
Reassurance Through Presence
Sustained presence is another important element. Forward-deployed Royal Navy ships such as HMS Tamar and HMS Spey—which recently visited Japan—operate alongside British Forces Brunei to provide reassurance through continuity and persistence. These assets patrol, train with partners, and stand ready to support efforts to deter coercion or respond to emerging challenges.
With Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine threatening both our regions and violating the UN Charter, Indo-Pacific security has never been more indivisible from Euro-Atlantic security—and the security of both regions requires economic stability. A secure region underpins trade, investment, and shared prosperity.
Global Security and Prosperity
The Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) is a powerful signal of the UK's ambition to bring partners from different geographic regions closer together in support of collective security and greater prosperity.
This is why the UK's whole-of-government approach matters: the Ministry of Defence sustains presence and cooperation; the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office leads diplomatic outreach; and the Department for Business and Trade advances market access through CPTPP and bilateral agreements.
Recent high-level dialogues with Japan on CPTPP and clean energy initiatives—including floating offshore wind and nuclear collaboration—highlight how economic resilience and security reinforce one another in the UK-Japan partnership.
This year's UK delegation to the Shangri-La Dialogue—the largest yet—is a clear signal of its intention to remain engaged and present in the Indo-Pacific region at the highest diplomatic and strategic levels.
The rationale and need for such engagement have never been clearer. Consider the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil flows. Recent disruptions surrounding access to the Strait have reverberated across global supply chains and caused prices to surge worldwide.
As maritime nations, Japan and the UK understand the importance of reopening the Strait of Hormuz—and of preserving the right of transit passage without restrictions or tolls, which is essential for international trade.
Challenges of this nature, with global implications, require responses that are coordinated, sustained and multinational—precisely the kind of cooperation the UK and Japan are working to strengthen.
Building Long-Term Partnerships
The UK's Strategic Defence Review, completed in 2025, recognized that today's threats are increasingly interconnected and global in their impact. The UK's approach in the Indo-Pacific reflects that assessment: long-term partnerships, practical cooperation, capacity-building, and a willingness to work across sectors and borders. Exercises like Bersama Shield and Cyber Marvel are tangible expressions of this strategy. So too is the UK's deepening defense relationship with Japan, through major defense industrial collaboration, expanded operational cooperation and closer alignment on regional security priorities.
The UK's choice has been deliberate. Rather than relying on occasional visits or short-term announcements, it has opted for persistent engagement and meaningful capability sharing. This approach supports a stable, rules-based order and strengthens our economic ties—outcomes that benefit both the Indo-Pacific and the UK, and that are particularly important in the UK–Japan partnership, where shared interests and shared values converge.
Shangri-La is an important event and achieves great things. However, it's worth pointing out that after the Dialogue's cameras and delegates depart, its legacy of strong relationships built on shared training, shared standards, and sustained presence is what we want to endure.
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Author: Captain Andrew Norgate, Defence Attaché, British Embassy Tokyo
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