Andrew Mitchell: We must call time on British financial aid to China

Shadow international development secretary Andrew Mitchell has declared that the UK should stop sending financial aid to China.

His demand comes on the back of a new report from the House of Commons International Development select committee, which has proposed continuing sending aid to China for at least the next six years.

But Mr Mitchell says that there are poorer countries which are more deserving of aid from the British Government:

"British taxpayers need to know that their aid money is helping the poorest people in the world, not going to countries which have enough money to tackle poverty themselves.

"China... has an ambitious space exploration programme and is sitting on foreign exchange reserves of almost £2 trillion."

And, lest we forget, it spent £20 billion hosting the Olympics last year - which makes the £10 million annual subvention proposed by the DfID select committee seem like small beer by comparison.

Britain should nonetheless continue to pursue with China “a strong development partnership based on dialogue, advice and skill sharing," Mr Mitchell adds.

Jonathan Isaby

Comments

[Steevo]

I would've thought financial aid to China is a joke. For an earth quake or something in the future okay but this smells of please be nice to us in mister Premier. Hillary's first hypocritical visit downplayed human rights abuses because we in the states need the Chicoms to purchase our debt. Do you?

[Iain]

We should call an end to Aid full stop. It doesn't work, its just welfare on an international scale.

Why the hell are we giving £825 million Aid to India , a country that can afford a nuclear arms program and a space program?

[Victor, NW Kent]

China is the wealthiest country in the world right now so to send any financial aid is ludicrous.

[Richard Calhoun]

Put it back in the kitty, never mind giving it elsewhere.
We can't afford it.

[Iain]

"China is the wealthiest country in the world right now so to send any financial aid is ludicrous."

For Westminster to be flashing British tax payers cash in China shows that they are not good custodians of our tax money.

[Super Blue]

Andrew Mitchell says something Conservatives can agree with - stop press!

[Mark Fulford]

I had assumed that what we give to China is not "aid" aid but grease. Same with India.

If it's grease, it's money well spent. If it's aid, it's ridiculous. Does anyone know the workings of our trade relations with China well enough to answer this?

[Malcolm Stevas]

If history had not repeatedly demonstrated the Alice In Wonderland state to which our version of democracy has been reduced, the fact that this country hands over millions of pounds annually to China would be sufficient proof of institutional lunacy. Foreign aid is practically always a case of ripping-off poor people in rich countries and donating the ill gotten gains to rich people in poor countries: but giving money to China can only confirm their view of us as terminally decadent and brain-dead.

[Iain]

"the fact that this country hands over millions of pounds annually to China"

Its worse than that, for as we aren't paying our way in the world, the Government is borrowing the money on our childrens debit account, then giving it to China.

[Barry Reed]

It appears the country is run by lunatics, the sooner they are out of office the sooner the UK might recover.
I say might as thanks to Nu Labour and Gordon Brown the UK economy has just gone over the cliff, what we find when we eventually get to the bottom, who knows?

[Vaughan Davies]

surely the same logic applies to many recipients of our aid. Whether the supplicant country is launching rockets into space or building grand palaces for its (probably unelected) rulers.

[Malcolm Stevas]

Barry Reed:
"It appears the country is run by lunatics, the sooner they are out of office the sooner the UK might recover."
Agreed, but what evidence have you that an incoming Tory administration is at all likely to rescind this "aid" to China, and/or slash foreign aid entirely - ?

[A. Headhunter]

Aid is money given by poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

[Letters From A Tory]

I think it was Stephen Crabb who made the point on ConHome recently that the recession should not be a reason to attack foreign aid or cut back on how much we give to other countries - and he's absolutely right.

Thankfully, giving aid to India and China is such a complete joke that we don't need to even mention the recession when explaining how absurd it is to give away hundreds of millions of pounds a year to these increasingly rich countries when our pockets are empty.

[Jack Iddon]

I keep getting back to thinking that this kind of fiscal lunacy (they are intelligent people and so do know what they are doing) must have some element of culpable negligent criminality or something of a legal nature almost equating to Blair's criminality over Iraq. Surely the time must come when like the USA we go after these involved new labour leaders, every one of them. What Browne, Blair and co have done and are still doing is criminal and must ultimately be investigated and dealt with.

[Mark Williams]

We give money to China, China lends money to the US.

Why are we baling out America?

[Iain]

" but what evidence have you that an incoming Tory administration is at all likely to rescind this "aid" to China, and/or slash foreign aid entirely - ?"

None at all , for Cameron’s Conservatives have made the Aid budget a sacred cow protected from any rationalisation.

Its another case where Cameron's Conservatives have jumped on a politically correct left wing cause just as everybody else realises it is a complete failure.

The west has given Africa $1.3 trillion in Aid yet its a bigger basket case now than when we started. At what point do our politicians decide that this a policy that doesn't work? After they have tossed away another trillion dollars?

[Dr. Kegang Wu]

Mark Fulford made an important point. International Development programme is always a part of international engagement with overseas countries. I have been involved in international trade and investment with China over 10 years and also engaged in an aid project to Nepal.

A conservative government will need to consider its framework policies of international development for its cooperation with countries like China and India, whether it involves an element of aid or not is only a part of it, especially if the budget is very small.

I have read the House of Commons report mentioned, it actually stated that DFID is "to withdraw its bilateral aid programme to China in 2011"

[Man in a Shed]

Isn't the truth that we are the ones begging for aide from China ? Except they aren't giving it, but loaning it to us.

This is solely for the egos of Labour ministers.

I also note the green light given to China's repression in Tibet by Miliband who recognised the Chinese govts authority in Tibet recently.

[snegchui]

Man In a Shed:
This not strictly true. He didn't understand the big words.
" “sovereignty” in Tibet vs “suzerainty” over the region. Apparently unaware of the importance of the issue to both China and exiled Tibetans, Britain changed policy in a bland and obscure statement published on the internet."

[maureen Baldwin-Moore]

I agree......Aid should only be distributed via accredited 'Aid groups'....Not given to Governments, as it rarely reaches the people.
Sorry folks....but we have our own poor, plus imigrants to help.
In the case of National disasters....that's a special case. but ...sorry, we can not afford this 'largess' approach.
A Dutch person said to me, that he could not understand why there was so much begging in the U.K. I thought he meant 'begging' as in 'poor'.....but NO. He meant all the collection boxes he was approached with in shopping centres for.....Red Cross, Cancer. Hospice, mental health, blind, deaf and of course animals. He said, what is your government doing that these people have to BEG on the streets for money? I had no answer at the time.....but I guess I could have said....Because we have to show the world what a big prosperous country we are and give our hard earned money away.
Sorry folks we are broke...we have got to save our pennies in OUR piggy bank......so that we can keep OUR tax payers alive if they need special treatments or care.
Glad to get that off my chest.

[Jack Iddon]

maureen Baldwin-Moore

Precisely!

[Iain]

"Aid should only be distributed via accredited 'Aid groups'...."

I am not sure they are any better, for they are in the business ( and they are a busniess) of selling sob stories to the soft headed in exchange for money. Unfortunately their activities means that they reinforce dependency in the countries in recdeipt of their 'good deeds', but at least that is a matter of choice compared to Government Aid which we are forced to pay.

If the Government think that its Aid programs are so whole heartedly supported by the population why not return all the Aid money to the tax payer and let them decide where they want to spend their money!

[Katy Smith]

Nobody minds helping other countries out when times are good but we are struggling ourselves. Surely, it's time to stop sending aid completely now. We just don't have the money!

[Steve Tierney]

I really dislike government aid programs. I'd like to do away with them all.

It's not that I have any problem with overseas charity, I would just like to be able to choose where my charity goes, rather than have it foisted upon me by others, whose idea of who and what deserve charity may be quite different from my own.

I wouldn't have a problem with a 'disaster fund' to cover assistance of nations during extreme natural phenomenon. Outside of that, I think we would give more and better if we did it personally rather than nationally.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

This is music to my ears. I blogged about this ages ago and first urged Andrew to stop aid in a question to him on ConHome!(-:

http://hunterandshooter.blogspot.com/2007/05/end-aid-to-china-now.html

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/interviews/2007/05/last_week_you_a.html

[Ruth]

Just to play Devil's advocate, countries have to budget their expenditure just like people. A person would have to be very poor before they decided not to spend money on a birthday gift for a loved one, or decent clothes to attend a wedding. China's budgets for development and culture are 2 separate budgets.

[Ruth]

Just to play Devil's advocate, countries have to budget their expenditure just like people. A person would have to be very poor before they decided not to spend money on a birthday gift for a loved one, or decent clothes to attend a wedding. China's budgets for development and culture are 2 separate budgets.

[Jill, London]

This is all the wrong way round!

As other posters have pointed out, the Chinese are so awash with money they are buying American debt! As “The Daily Telegraph” wrote on 23 February 2009: “China already owns $696bn of US government debt”.
Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/4782755/Hillary-Clinton-pleads-with-China-to-buy-US-Treasuries-as-Japan-looks-on.html

Considering the government of all the Comrades has brought this country to its knees - financially - why aren’t they asking China for aid?!

[Cllr Donna Jones]

*STOP*
We must stop sending vast amounts of money to China now. Yes British people and the British government are right to sympathise with under developed countires around the world. And for many years we can hold our heads high in the knowledge that we have sent £millions to poor countires to aid them. However, that was before a recession, before the national debt had quadrupled and before we had alarming increaases in our unemployment levels with indications that this would be doubled in the next 2 years. It's time the UK started looking after thier own people and stopped trying to win prizes for looking after everyone else. We can return to our policy on sending aid to poor countries when we are out of this recession and unemployment is down again. Maybe other countries would like to send some money our way for a change?

[Paul Marks]

Giving aid to China is insane.

But there are some people who want to give vastly more aid.

For example John Micklethwait - editor in chief of the "Economist" magazine.

On B.B.C. Radio 4's "Any Questions" programme Mr Micklethwait was asked a question about globel warming.

He first told a direct lie by saying that former President Bush had said the theory did not make sense (in reality President Bush at first said he did not know, and in later years fully accepted the theory that human created C02 emissions caused globel warming).

Then Mr Micklethwait said that a "Carbon Tax" should be imposed (on top of all existing taxes - there was nothing about getting rid of another tax) on all of us.

Then Editor John Micklethwait said that as the billions of people in India and China "could not afford" to deal with the problem of CO2 emissions - people in the West would have to "pay for them". In short that what is left of British industry (not much is left) should subsidize the vast industrial base of China (and India also).

It is astonishing that such a man is considered a free market counter weight by the B.B.C.

The Conservative party should protest that when such a man is put on discussion programmes he is not a counter weight at all - he is just another leftist.

[margaret ginever]

Please stop all our foreign aid as we are in such a parlous position ourselves and we have no surplus money to send anywhere as we are supporting lots of people who have not contruibuted a penny into our "pot" and yet they come and are eligible for all the same benefits as our people who have been paying taxes etc. all their lives.
We are now a poor country and cannot affort to pay out money like this and our politicians ought to realise it. GET REAL.

[C G Hughes]

We are not only sending large amounts of aid to China and India et al but we have also sent them a large proportion of our wealth creating industries FOC. If they can afford space programmes and large armies with modern equipment then they can afford to look after their own poor. Stop this aid to such countries and if we give aid at all,give it to those who deserve it such as The Gambia where we have resposibilities.

[Derek Oram]

The rampant stupidity of our "elected" politions has clearly influenced both David Cameron and the shadow chancellor - who now clain to have ring-fenced overseas aid despite the astronomical debts we have from the Brown era. Is there any political party (apart from the BNP) who recognise that until we have paid off this National debt
any donations leaving this country
will compound the problem