The British government has decided to cut its aid to China by 95 percent, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Wednesday.
The remaining budget will fund programmes on open societies and human rights, he said.
Raab said the new budget allocation is intended to ensure the UK’s spending on international aid “brings maximum strategic coherence, impact, and value for taxpayers’ money.”
He said the UK “remains a world leader in international development” even after the cuts, and promised to “return to our commitment to spend 0.7 percent of gross national income on ODA when the fiscal situation allows.”
Reducing international aid is a controversial issue in the UK and is opposed by opposition parties.
But she said she found it “very surprising that China is still receiving money.”
Danielle Boxall, the Alliance’s media campaign manager, said: “Slashing foreign aid to China is long overdue.”
“Previous projects, like helping the Chinese produce rice, saw wanton waste of taxpayers’ cash,” she said. “This should be a stepping stone to a proper and permanent cut in the ostentatious overseas aid budget.”
The UK’s relations with the Chinese regime have deteriorated over recent years due to disputes over Hong Kong, Chinese telecom giant Huawei, Chinese cyber-attacks on UK institutions, and allegations of Chinese human rights abuses including genocide.
Iain Duncan Smith, a former leader of the Conservative party, one of the people sanctioned by Beijing, welcomed the cuts to aid to China, but questioned “why we have to send any aid to the world’s second largest economy.”