Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the state of relations between the UK and China.

We recognise that China poses a systemic challenge to our values and interests. We are evolving our approach to one of robust pragmatism, which focuses on UK interests. The Foreign Secretary spoke to his counterpart, Qin Gang, on 20 February and met with Chinese Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, Wang Yi, at the Munich Security Conference on 18 February. During those conversations he underlined the importance to the UK of defending human rights, the UK position on the war in Ukraine and the fact that we will continue to speak out and take action where appropriate. However, the UK cannot ignore China's significance in world affairs and the Foreign Secretary also discussed UK-China working together on issues like global economic stability and climate change. The upcoming Integrated Review refresh will set out our position and approach to China.