脫歐公投前後英國外交政策的研究(2010-2020)

Abstract

本文關注2010年保守黨執政後，英國外交政策的轉變過程與結果。自保守黨於2010年5月上台以來，英國傳統的外交政策方向出現鬆動。首先，自二戰以來的「英美特殊關係」在雙方國家利益定位不一和金融危機與國際體系變動之國家和國際層次因素驅使之下，呈現逐年淡化的趨勢。另外，英歐關係自卡麥隆執政以來經歷歐債危機、移民問題和國內疑歐主義的高漲，促使英國於2016年公投中定意脫歐，而儘管脫歐協商冗長繁雜、國內與歐盟利益觀點嚴重分歧，以及國際社會悲觀以待，英國仍堅持該政策路線並於2020年1月31日正式離開歐盟。英國脫歐後說明英國既有以英美關係和英歐關係之「大西洋橋樑」為政策種新的策略難以為繼。因此2016年英國進入後脫歐時代之際，保守黨政府提出「世界的英國」作為英國接下來的政策方向，意圖以新興強國家為目標，開拓美國與歐盟以外的對外關係和貿易市場，似有19世紀中期大英帝國所持「光榮孤立」之避免不必要結盟與約定，專一追求貿易利益與海外地位的意涵。但2020年後，英中關係惡化標誌「世界的英國」內涵之重大轉變，英國逐漸提高參與美國在全球建構圍堵中國之行動，和於印太地區的部署，其中的戰略和安全意義不同於2016年英國脫歐前後之際，而呈現相對明確和堅定的方向。

The thesis foucuses on the process of the changes of British Foreign Policy after the Conservatives held power in 2010. Since the Conservatives were in office in May 2010, the tradition path of UK foreign policy had been altered. First of all, the US-UK Special Relationship formulated since WW2 has been diluted due to both the national and international factors, as well as US and UK’s differences on national interest and the 2008 Financial Crisis which led to the transformation of the interenational system and structure. Second, the UK and the EU had been going through the chaos of European Debt Crisis and immigration issue, enhancing domestic Euroscepticism and lighting up the path to Brexit. British people had decided to leave in the EU in Brexit vote in 2016, and despite the controversial and time-consuming Brexit negotiation, the huge disagreement of the position between the EU, UK government and Britsih People, and the negative assessments among international society, the UK hadn’t changed their minds and had officially left the EU in January 2020. Pacing into the post-Brexit era, the UK proposed “Global Britain” policy to replace traditional foreign policy which mainly focused on the US and the EU. “Global Britain” focused on exploring new relationship and commercial interests with emerging powers, whose concept seems to be similar with the “splendid isolation” which Britsih held during the glorious time of Great Britain in mid-19th Century. However, the deterioration of UK-China relationship marked the changes of the concept of “Global Britain.” British behaviors such as echoing the US propose to contain Chinese power and the military deployment in Indo-Pacific area indicate that the strategic and security significance of UK foreign policy has been redefined after “Global Britain” was first mentioned in 2016.