China’s economy is nearly five times the size of the UK’s, at $13,368,073 to $2,824,850 respectively in 2019. MPs demanded the inquiry into the funding after the figures were discovered buried in the Department for International Development’s annual report. Some of the £71.6 million was used to help set up Chinese firms to compete with Britain’s businesses.

The DFiD report revealed that the £71.6 million in aid was a combination of direct British aid and funding usually reserved for the United Nations and EU.

It was used to develop Chinese education, with some of the funds being spent on training primary school teachers

Funding was also allocated to train Chinese people to use advanced technology, and to “support human rights”.

Other Chinese programmes using the British funding include combatting illegal wildlife trade and setting up offshore wind-farms.

READ MORE: Brexit LIVE: Remainers bemoan after Boris RULES OUT inquiry into referendum interference

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith savaged the report, and questioned why the UK was sending millions to a country which was “breaking every rule in the book”.

He also described the China aid as “utter madness” and led the calls for an urgent review into Britain’s relationship with China.

Mr Duncan Smith added: “China is the second-largest economy in the world, and it is winning business all over the world by undercutting firms in the West.

“It has the largest sovereign fund in the world, and it sells more than it imports.

“Meanwhile, we are helping these Chinese businesses.

“This makes it all the more urgent that we have a strategic review of the entirety of our relationship with and our dependency on China, including this sort of nonsense spending on aid.”

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that £3 million would be cut from the total aid budget, and a Government source told the Daily Mail that “the axe would fall” on China and other countries.

But while the Government said aid spending would be slashed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mail also revealed that millions were funnelled through the China Prosperity Fund.

That fund had its own budget of £99 million to be used from 2018 to 2022, and is meant to promote British and Chinese business cooperation.

The department’s report was snuck out as MPs get closer to their summer recess.

Another shocking revelation from the report says that department staff took 4,098 flights, or 11 a day, between London to Glasgow offices.

The DfID report also revealed that British taxpayers funded £5 million in 2018 for North Korea from the UN and EU fund, £4.6 million for Cuba from Britain directly, and an eye-watering £287.9 million for India.