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Select committee: Foreign Affairs Committee

21st Special Report - China and the Rules-Based International System: Government Response to the Committee’s Sixteenth Report

Published 21 June 2019

Foreign Affairs Committee China and the international rules-based system inquiry Report on parliament.uk ↗

At a glance

The government's response

This document responds to 16th Report - China and the Rules-Based International System.

This is the government's response, published 21 June 2019.

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The Government responds point by point, setting out existing arrangements and positions, while not planning a separate lessons-learned exercise and not publishing the National Security Council's China strategy.

  • On the Belt and Road Initiative, it describes a cross-Government BRI Board chaired by the FCO's Head of China Department, which allows proposals to "be considered on a case-by-case basis". It says the UK "did not agree to sign an MOU endorsing the BRI as a whole".
  • It does not plan the lessons-learned exercise the Committee recommended, saying it "would duplicate existing work and divert resources away from delivering our objectives".
  • On a China strategy, it says it does not publish National Security Council strategies "for reasons of national security", lists the broad areas of focus, and says it will "find opportunities to set out more detail" on its approach "over the next 18 months".
  • On the 5G supply chain, it says decisions "will be announced in due course and to Parliament", and will be based on "evidence and a hard-headed assessment of the risks".

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error

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