International MPs Urge Caution Over UK's China 'Mega-Embassy'
8 min read
China’s plan to build a ‘mega-embassy’ in the heart of London has set alarm bells ringing in parliaments around the world. Will it get the green light? Noah Vickers reports
Labour’s claims of a rotten inheritance increasingly fall on deaf ears. But even Keir Starmer’s sternest critics might concede that China’s effort to build a new embassy in London is among the more radioactive items in his in-tray.
A resubmitted application to develop Royal Mint Court, opposite the Tower of London, has been called in from Tower Hamlets council and is among the most sensitive topics occupying ministers.
If approved on 10 December, it would be the largest embassy in Europe, spanning 20,000 sq metres and with on-site housing for 200 staff.
Under the last government, the land was purchased by China for £255m in 2018, though a planning application for the development was refused by Tower Hamlets in 2022. Within weeks of Labour entering government in 2024, however, China re-submitted an identical version of the plans.
Opposition to the project was put on steroids in January this year, as reports emerged that fibre-optic cables linking the City of London and Canary Wharf can be found underneath the site. With that revelation, what would otherwise be a domestic matter for the UK has become an issue of international significance.
The geopolitical significance of this building is known beyond British shores
The House can reveal that even in countries as far away as New Zealand – a Five Eyes security partner to the UK – parliamentarians are nervous about the London embassy.
“While the UK’s diplomatic relations with China are the business of the UK, the geopolitical significance of this building is known beyond British shores,” a cross-party cohort of six New Zealand MPs tell The House in a joint statement.
The group – who belong to the centre-left Labour, centre-right National and right-wing ACT parties – are all affiliated to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a global network of Sino-sceptic lawmakers. They add: “If there was any risk to financial services posed by sensitive data cabling, IPAC would expect the UK government to reassure New Zealand parliamentarians.”
Their comments come after a White House official in June warned that the United States “is deeply concerned about providing China with potential access to the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies”.
In at least two European countries, IPAC-affiliated parliamentarians have raised the proposed embassy with their governments.
In the Netherlands, questions about the scheme were tabled in the House of Representatives by Jan Paternotte, an MP for the centrist D66 party, who fears London could become “the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) interference operations in Europe”.
In a response seen by The House, the Netherlands government says the embassy “could potentially affect the Dutch financial sector and thus Dutch interests”, adding: “We will continue to monitor this and take action where necessary.”
And in the Swiss parliament, the issue has been flagged by Social Democrat MP Fabian Molina. “London’s data security is of international importance due to its status as a global hub for financial services,” he says. “I therefore hope that the British government will take all necessary measures to protect the integrity of the financial centre.”
Ministers and officials refuse to publicly comment on the cables and whether they pose such a risk.
But if permission is granted for the scheme, the government has been told – by a lawyer acting on behalf of the Royal Mint Court Residents’ Association – to “be under no illusion” that the decision will be challenged in the High Court.
Mark Nygate, the association’s treasurer, believes the embassy’s security requirements could eventually result in neighbouring residents – whose homes back directly onto the site – being forced out, as China owns the freehold of the land they live on.
Even if that does not transpire, he fears the project’s potential impacts on their privacy, safety and security, despite China’s architects insisting it will have less impact on them than the existing, vacant development.
“There’s two commercial units on either side of that little walkway [into the back of the embassy site] – one’s a Muslim nursery, and one is a hairdressers’,” says Nygate. “How are they going to feel having armed guards by those gates? There’s so much wrong with this plan.”
A judicial review against planning permission could rest on several grounds – the first being that China has redacted parts of the embassy’s blueprint within the application. One of the UK’s top planning lawyers, Lord Banner KC, has argued in a written opinion that without those redacted details, Housing Secretary Steve Reed cannot make a decision which takes into account all “material” planning considerations.
Banner points out that China “would benefit from diplomatic immunity in relation to the activities that happen in the rooms the details of which are redacted”. “It is not for me to speculate on what those activities may be,” he adds.
As of August, the number of redacted rooms had been reduced to five, with China’s representatives arguing that they had now provided enough detail to allow a decision to be made. In an apparent impasse, Reed has said he “expects to see everything that is being proposed” before reaching a verdict, while China points out that the US embassy in Nine Elms was granted planning permission without full detail of internal layouts.
“Most embassies – particularly those of larger countries – they’re entitled, actually, under these diplomatic arrangements, to have a certain element of secrecy about their activities,” says Lord Kirkhope, a Conservative member of the China All-Party Parliamentary Group.
In the case of the US embassy, one example is the fact that the building’s design incorporates a faraday cage – a mesh of conductive material to prevent electronic eavesdropping.
The issue of diplomatic immunity – which would be guaranteed for China under the 1961 Vienna Convention – could present another sticking point for the project in relation to a set of Cistercian ruins at Royal Mint Court.
China intends to make the ruins accessible for the public to view via a paved forecourt on the site’s edge, but anyone stepping onto that land would be beyond the immediate reach of UK authorities. If someone were to suffer a heart attack there, or disorder broke out, paramedics and police would require the ambassador’s permission to enter.
To address this point, China has stated in a Note Verbale to the UK government that it will surrender diplomatic immunity over that forecourt. But Banner says this assurance is “meaningless” and could be withdrawn at any time.
Luke de Pulford, IPAC’s executive director, fears it could enable the kidnapping of anti-China protesters or dissidents. “It doesn’t have any force in law, and unfortunately, the CCP has a record of attempting abductions,” he says. “It would not be wise to accept this as a satisfactory compromise.”
For Kirkhope, talk of kidnappings overstates the actual level of risk. While China’s critics say the embassy’s proposed site by Tower Bridge is too central, prestigious and populated, Kirkhope argues these factors would in fact reduce any danger of misbehaviour from embassy staff.
“The more the embassy is placed in a location where it is part of activities going on, and really well known where it is, and it’s seen and it’s obvious, the less you’d have such situations, surely,” he says.
There are also questions over whether Keir Starmer or his ministers gave assurances to China that permission for the scheme would be granted, rather than solely treating it as a quasi-judicial planning decision.
Regardless of anybody’s pleadings to the contrary, this will be a political decision
It is known that Xi Jinping raised the matter directly with Starmer in their first call in August 2024, though Downing Street has said it does not “recognise any claims of commitments or assurances”. Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake has nonetheless requested an investigation by the independent adviser on ministerial standards, Laurie Magnus. At the time of writing, Magnus has not yet determined whether it merits investigation.
“Regardless of anybody’s pleadings to the contrary, this will be a political decision, a diplomatic decision,” says de Pulford.
“The government is in a no-win situation, and I don’t fully blame them, frankly. They [China] were sold the building under the previous administration, which had already been given, by Boris [Johnson, foreign secretary at the time], diplomatic assent…
“If they give the green light,” he says of the current government, “then they’re going to lose face with allies, they’re going to come under very heavy criticism, they’re going to look extremely soft on China and we’re potentially going to suffer the national security consequences.
“If they don’t give the green light, there will be serious blowback from Beijing and, I would say, a forced reset in UK-China relations.”
