Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will raise at the UN, the land reclamation by the Chinese government in the South China Sea.

The UK remains concerned about any unilateral actions in the South China Sea, such as large scale land reclamation, that change the facts on the ground, raise tensions and increase the likelihood of miscalculation. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), raised the issue directly with the Chinese Foreign Minister on 10 June, and the UK has supported recent G7 Leaders’ and Foreign Ministers’ statements which express concern at the situation. We will continue to make our concerns known, bilaterally with the Chinese, alongside allies, and in international fora. The UK would engage in any multilateral discussion of the South China Sea along similar lines.