Visiting the United Kingdom for the first time in her role, Wong said many people “worked as domestic servants for British colonists, as did my own grandmother”.
Britain must be prepared to face up to the uncomfortable reality of its colonial past as part of its embrace of a modern Indo-Pacific region, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said in a landmark policy speech in London.
“Such stories can sometimes feel uncomfortable – for those whose stories they are, and for those who hear them,” Wong said.Britain, along with the United States, Australia and France, is seeking to build security and trade ties in the Indo-Pacific with a shift in foreign policy strategy.
“It gives us the opportunity to find more common ground than if we stayed sheltered in narrower versions of our countries’ histories. It helps open the world to us. It helps open the Indo-Pacific to us.” “If conflict were to break out in the Indo-Pacific, it would be catastrophic – for our people and our prosperity.“Australia sees our investment in our future defence capabilities as essential for deterring conflict and maintaining a strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific.”
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