So why do we still send Beijing £50m in aid?

BRITAIN is handing tens of millions of pounds in foreign aid to China – as Beijing spends billions exploring space.

Whitehall departments lavished £49.3million of the UK’s foreign aid budget on China in 2017.

Schemes funded included a £981,950 study into air pollution in cities and a £860,732 project to encourage the population to reduce its salt intake, while £58,555 went on developing a plan to help protect the Chinese giant salamander. The Department for International Development no longer sends cash aid to China but other Whitehall departments have continued to spend it there.

Handouts in 2017 included £333,614 from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for research into providing gastric cancer screening in rural China. The department lavished £713,796 on a research programme into renewable energy systems such as floating offshore wind power and wave energy, and £107,711 on a survey into how China’s land and water use is causing widespread soil degradation.

The cross-Whitehall Prosperity Fund gave £34,627 to a project to develop China’s electric car industry, while the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs spent £35,701 on an anti-ivory campaign on social media.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt admitted last May that China does not believe it should receive foreign aid handouts.

In June, the Commons international development committee called for the aid budget, which increased by £682million to a record £14.1billion in 2017, to be focused on poverty reduction.