The People's Republic wants to build a massive new embassy in central London, and a lot of people aren't happy about it
Why are people worried?
In May 2018, the Chinese government paid £255 million for Royal Mint Court, a 5.5-acre complex of historic buildings next to the Tower of London. Over the past seven years, local residents, Tower Hamlets Council, the Metropolitan Police, the security services, the Trump administration and five British governments have all expressed concerns about the Chinese proposal to convert the site into the largest diplomatic mission in Europe. Angela Rayner, the secretary of state for housing, has until 9 September to decide whether to let the project go ahead. The expectation is that she will approve it, but critics warn that the building could become a "nest of spies" in the heart of the capital.
What exactly do the Chinese want to build?
The site housed the Royal Mint from 1810 until 1967, when operations moved to Llantrisant in Wales. Its main buildings – neoclassical structures completed by Robert Smirke, who designed the British Museum – are Grade II* listed, meaning they can't be altered significantly. However, the British "starchitect" David Chipperfield's plans for the new embassy involve reconfiguring the site to include 225 residences, offices and underground rooms, a "Cultural Exchange" building, and a public square to allow access to the remains of a medieval abbey on the site. Nearby pedestrian pathways, bicycle racks and green spaces will be "upgraded and enhanced", a Chinese embassy spokesperson told Inside Housing, while "the existing property, courtyard landscaping, and the visual appeal of the public areas will be comprehensively improved".
What's the objection to that?
There are many. The Metropolitan Police has been worried about political protests, which already dog the existing Chinese embassy in Marylebone. The new site overlooks a major route into central London, and thousands of protesters could block the road, presenting a public safety problem. In 2022, a physical clash between Chinese consular officials and protesters in Manchester focused minds on the issue. The plans envisage a public courtyard, but because of the legal inviolability of diplomatic premises, this area would be beyond the reach of police or ambulances. For some critics, there are also issues of national symbolism. Visitors to the Tower of London "would turn left and see the flag of the Chinese Communist Party flying", a local Conservative councillor said in 2022. "Can you imagine President Macron permitting this next to the Arc de Triomphe?" Mainly, though, the concerns relate to security.
What sort of security concerns?
Embassies, being beyond the reach of local security services, often serve as spying hubs. The planned mission, argues the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a US think tank, is likely to provide Chinese intelligence with "a myriad of espionage opportunities". Most alarming is that the site sits directly atop communication lines and fibre-optic cables running between the City of London and Canary Wharf, Britain's main financial centres. These could be physically tapped: Beijing's plans include a large basement, several underground rooms (dubbed "spy dungeons" by the press) and tunnels. The site is also close to three big data centres, and a BT telephone exchange. The plans feature a "rooftop structure of unclear purpose", which the CSIS fears could be used for signals intelligence collection.
What are fibre-optic drones?
They are controlled by a fishing line-style fibre-optic filament, which unspools as it flies and links the drone to an operator. This confers two major advantages: the drones cannot be knocked out by jamming; and the images they send back are crystal clear. They were used to great effect to destroy Ukraine's supply lines into Russia's Kursk region, from which most Ukrainian forces were ejected in March; videos showed fields strewn with fibre-optic cables. Russia and Ukraine are now both racing to source cable: prospective buyers from both sides are said to have bumped into each other in Chinese factories. The downside is that their range is limited by cable length (up to 20km); they're heavy; and the cables can become tangled in trees or electricity lines.
Who is leading the objections?
They began with the residents of Saint Mary Graces Court, a housing development next to the site, who soon after the sale objected that the Chinese state would become their "superior landlord". Local opposition grew, fed by geopolitics: China's many human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are felt strongly in Tower Hamlets, the London borough with the largest Muslim population; it also has a large Hong Kong Chinese population, including refugees who arrived after Beijing's political crackdown there in 2019/20. In 2022, Tower Hamlets Council refused permission for the development. It did the same to a resubmitted application last year. Meanwhile, it has been revealed that MI5, GCHQ, the Bank of England and Innovate UK, a tech quango, have all issued warnings. The Trump administration has also pitched in. A senior White House official recently told The Sunday Times that the United States was "deeply concerned".
What is the current situation?
Rishi Sunak's government declared the "golden era" of Anglo-Chinese relations to be over, and was probably happy that Tower Hamlets rejected it. However, Keir Starmer's Labour government has pursued a reset with China in the name of economic growth, and President Xi Jinping is said to have raised the embassy matter personally with Starmer. Angela Rayner "called in" the plans, which means that, after a planning inspection, the decision will be taken by central government. Other cabinet ministers have signalled cautious approval for the project. And the Met has withdrawn its earlier objections.
So is Beijing pushing hard?
Apparently. President Xi has various points of leverage in negotiations with the government. One is the £600 million in Chinese investment that Rachel Reeves secured during a trip to China in January. Another is the dilapidated British embassy on Guanghua Road in Beijing, which dates from 1959. The UK plans to rebuild it at a cost of £100 million; planning permission has not been forthcoming, and presumably won't be until the London embassy matter is resolved. For their part, ministers are confident the security worries can be easily managed: as Peter Kyle, the science, innovation and technology minister, put it this month, they will be "taken care of assiduously in the planning process". Anticipating a yes from Rayner, the local residents' association is already raising funds for a judicial review.
Espionage and the anti-China hawks
In 2023, Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, described the "massive amounts of covert activity" originating from China in the UK – aimed not just at collecting "government or military secrets" and data on "critical infrastructure", but also at hoovering up potentially valuable information from innovative start-ups, established companies and university research facilities. He estimated that 20,000 Britons had been approached by Chinese agents on LinkedIn in the hope of stealing industrial or technological secrets. In addition, there has been a series of cases of alleged Chinese spies penetrating government circles.
Since 2020, MPs have created hawkish anti-China coalitions in Parliament, such as the China Research Group (CRG) founded by Tory MPs Tom Tugendhat and Neil O'Brien, and the Inter Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). These groups have highlighted Chinese human rights abuses, and the threat that they think Beijing poses in many areas, from intellectual property theft to military and industrial dominance. They have also lobbied hard over the "super-embassy". China has imposed sanctions on five MPs over their criticism of human rights violations in Xinjiang.
