By IRNA
London : The UK foreign policy was framed in the 18th century for a global British Empire, but for the future, the country must reinvent itself as a “global hub,” according to Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
Miliband also proposed that Britain should aspire to play a leading role in the EU, while keeping the US as its most single bilateral relationship, saying it needed the “power of an internationalist and engaged United States on our side.”
Britain’s special ties with the US was “born of shared values, strengthened by shared sacrifice,” he said with reference to the UK being the only country to support the US terror wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Speaking at the Lord Mayor’s Easter Banquet in London Wednesday night, Miliband listed four great challenges for British foreign policy – international terrorism, unresolved and latent conflict, climate change and more effective world institutions.
The existing international architecture was “not designed for the 21st century, he said in not only suggesting that the UN Security Council needed to be expanded and more representative but hinted on bringing India and China into the G8 group of leading powers.
“The balance of power in the world is shifting. Although the US will remain by far the dominant power for my lifetime, the rise of India and China is clear,” the 42 year old foreign secretary told ambassadors around the world at the annual banquet.