Britain has provided China about £400 million in foreign aid since 2010, according to recent analysis.
According to figures from the House of Commons Library, the UK government has continued to send financial aid to the communist regime despite having the world’s second greatest GDP (nearly $19 trillion).
Ministers, backbenchers, and campaign groups have repeatedly opposed sending aid to the autocratic regime, claiming human rights violations against religious and ethnic minorities, as well as political dissidents.
Direct aid to the Chinese government was halted in 2010 when International Development Minister Andrew Mitchell committed to stop sending taxpayer money to China.
Financial packages, on the other hand, have continued to be offered, reaching a high of £68 million in 2019 alone.
The money was reportedly intended to combat climate change, stimulate economic success, and redress human rights violations.
However, with China being the world’s top polluter that year, producing more CO2 than the next four combined, and human rights organisations claiming an upsurge in repression and systematic abuses against citizens that year, issues regarding the usefulness of aid payments have been raised.
Despite China’s fast economic progress over the last decade and the establishment of Chinese foreign aid initiatives, the UK continues to pay the hostile regime tens of millions of pounds for economic and environmental improvements.
Over a decade after first promising to cease UK aid to China, the Conservative Government has repeated its commitment.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under increasing pressure from prominent members of his own party, including his immediate predecessor Liz Truss, to take a tougher position against China for the future of the UK’s national security and geopolitical strategies.