Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of reports of China's involvement in support of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Any support for Putin's brutal and illegal war against Ukraine is deplorable. We are extremely concerned by these reports. There is a growing body of evidence that Chinese companies are enabling Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The Foreign Secretary has directly urged China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on a number of occasions, to take concrete measures to prevent Chinese companies from supporting Russia's military-industrial complex. We continue to call on China to stop providing diplomatic and material support to Russia's war effort.

On 24 February, we sanctioned an additional 10 Chinese entities, taking the total number of Chinese entities designated by the UK over supply to Russia to 31. Given the continued flow of components from China to Russia, this Government is now also minded to refuse licences for controlled goods on the Common High Priority list exported for stock to China. Guidance for UK exporters has been updated to this effect.