Areas: Welcoming the United Kingdom Into the Largest Indo-Pacific Trade Bloc, CPTPP, Exemplifies How To Use Concept Development To Understand International Affairs

The United Kingdom (UK) just signed a treaty with Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) members to formally join the Indo-Pacific trade bloc at a signing ceremony in New Zealand on 16 July 2023.

According to a report about the deal by CNBC, UK business and trade secretary, Kemi Badenoch, said that one of the reasons for signing this treaty is because it will give the country “huge opportunities and unparalleled access to a market of over 500 million people.” CNBC

Indeed this is true. The CPTPP trade bloc consists of Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Japan.

This Indo-Pacific trade partnership has not been a story of roses and rainbows. Geopolitics have had a massive impact on those countries, which is one of the benefits of them coming together for economic cooperation.

China is a big part of the story. Take note how the CPTPP member list ends with “Japan” but doesen’t include the United States or People’s Republic of China (PRC).

But another geopolitical trend relevant to the Indo-Pacific is deep-sea mining. For example, It has been reported by Oilprice.com that proposals to open up exploration opportunities for deep-sea mining are already trying to lift off in Norway.

This is a big development, as many of the world’s critical metals are to be found in the deep-sea maritime areas.

Please go back and read that last sentence carefully — “many of the world’s critical metals are to be found in the deep-sea maritime areas”.

This means one thing only: maritime borders and disputes are likely to reignite tensions between government, in addition to the evironmental, industries and wildlife impact that is the biggest focus from current reporting on this trend.

Critical metals include copper, nickel, cobalt, maganese, lithium, among others. Copper and nickel, along with potash fertilizers, form part of the future-facing commodities push from the global mining sector to increase output for global mega-trends.

The CPTPP trade bloc is the epitome of this publication Areas & Producers. On this publication, the content writers seek to follow the impact of mega-trends in Technology, World Affairs, Business Trends, Food Security and Climate Change, with the purpose to ascertain and explain international outcomes through Concept Development.

This entire news story is the epitome of why it’s critical to use Concept Development to understand events in International Affairs.

Concept Development is a way to understand an idea, or a set of ideas, which causes people to develop a new understanding on a particular topic, subject or trend. The purpose of this “way to understand” is to take that idea, or set of ideas, which has/have led to a new understanding, and refine that understanding into a new form of values about the world or the topic, subject or trend in question, that can be consequently articulated into a strategy or strategic framework.

Generally speaking, a strategy could apply to a present issues while a strategic framework could apply to future considersations.

For instance, the Concept Developer might ask these questions:

A strategy for whom? A strategic framework for which values?

To further explain this, let’s talk about process, logic and actions very briefly. A rocess implies that A would cause B. But what if A does not cause B? This is the purpose of Concept Development and why it matters to a strategy, because the effects are likely to cause values to change.

The outcomes of Concept Development do not have to be logical, but actionable.

According to British Petroleum (BP) CEO Bernard Looney, capital spending on hydrogen development forms part of the company’s strategy to invest only in “low carbon energy” projects while taking the once-oil producing major and transforming it into an “integrated energy company.”

Those concepts are particularly prevalent in the Asia-Pacific and Oceania areas, which is now collectively referred to as the Indo-Pacific (along with the India sub-continent and its surrounding maritime neibours and areas). In other words, from both a geographical and industrial point of view, the future of the world is being transformed to meet the needs of both corporations and humanity; hence the importance of Environment, Social, Governance (ESG) frameworks.

The potential success of outcomes in the Energy Transition and ESG frameworks hold the key to humanity’s race to cut down on carbon emissions through the Net Zero 2050 Strategy, which has been called for by climate scientists, industrial advocates and environmental activists from all around the world.

For a deeper dive into how to use Concept Development to understand International Affairs, read an in-depth story on: Deep-Sea Mining: A New Era of Adversarial Geopolitics Is Beginning on the Pacific Ocean

Follow the publication Areas & Producers too, please!