Commentary: China's UK mega-embassy plan was bulletproof after all

LONDON: The end is in sight for the saga of China’s London “super embassy”. Keir Starmer’s Labour government has let it be known that it will approve Europe’s largest diplomatic compound on the site of the former Royal Mint, jumping the gun ahead of a twice-delayed formal decision due next month.

The sensitivity of handing a complex of such size, strategic location and symbolic value to a Communist superpower spurred a yearslong campaign of opposition and has become the biggest obstacle to Starmer’s hopes of a reset in relations with China. He can thank the security services for lighting a path through. 

Government approval is a formality after MI5 and MI6, the domestic and foreign intelligence agencies, gave the green light, according to the Times. The leak surfaced shortly after MI5 issued an alert over Chinese espionage efforts targeted at parliamentarians and their staff, prompting Security Minister Dan Jarvis to say that the government wouldn’t tolerate such “covert and calculated” interference.

In response, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy called the accusations a “self-staged charade” and said Britain should “stop going further down the wrong path of undermining China-UK relations”.

A CHOREOGRAPHED DANCE

This has the feel of a choreographed dance, giving both sides the chance to display some performative outrage before getting down to business. The need for the MI5 alert was questionable: Few can be unaware by now that China is targeting the UK parliament, after the blizzard of publicity that surrounded the September collapse of a China spying case involving a former House of Commons researcher (both defendants denied the charges).

It did, though, provide some opportune cover for the embassy decision. The Royal Mint controversy has opened Starmer’s government to charges of placing economic advantage ahead of national security. But who can object when the security service itself is relaxed about the project – while warning loudly of the risks of Chinese espionage elsewhere?

The mega-embassy has drawn many objections, chief among them being that the site – close to 10 times the gross floor area of China’s existing London mission – will provide an enhanced base for the Communist Party’s expanding espionage and transnational repression operations.

Like all good spy dramas, there are probably a few red herrings in here. Some China analysts with no illusions about the party nevertheless regard the embassy issue as overblown. Almost all diplomatic missions host spies, but they are also visible places and unlikely to be the venue for the most sensitive activities.

Likewise, suspicions raised by redactions in the plans may be overstated. Such blanked-out areas aren’t unusual in embassy applications. Once approval is granted and the premises become inviolable, Britain will have little control over what China does with the space in any case – whatever the plans say.

The one concern that has resonated widely is the reported presence of fibre-optic cables running underneath (or close by) the site, opposite the Tower of London in the borough of Tower Hamlets. These carry sensitive data linking financial services firms in the nearby City of London with Canary Wharf to the east.

The risk that China could access these cables has elicited expressions of unease from governments and lawmakers in the US, Netherlands and New Zealand. Again, MI5 and MI6 appear to believe that these risks can be managed. If Britain can’t trust its own security services on such an issue, then it has a much bigger problem than just where to site a foreign embassy.

MEGA-EMBASSY PLANS HAVE PROVED IMPERVIOUS

There’s no debate that China needs a bigger diplomatic base. In addition to its main premises in Portland Place in the West End, the embassy has sections spread across half a dozen other locations in London. Consolidating these (which should be a condition of any approval) would make China’s activities easier to monitor.

Meanwhile, Britain’s own embassy in Beijing is in sore need of renovation, a project that Chinese authorities have held up pending signoff on their London plans. 

I sympathise with nearby residents who view the site as unsuitable and blanch at the thought of living in the shadow of a one-party surveillance state. It’s unfortunate that Royal Mint Court, centred on a 19th-century Georgian mansion and including the ruins of a 14th-century Cistercian abbey, was sold to China.

The sale took place in 2018, under the Conservative government of Boris Johnson, at the tail end of the “golden era” of UK-China relations. It was a different world, when Beijing had yet to crush Hong Kong’s freedoms or extend support to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Opponents made a compelling case that the plan would lead to traffic paralysis and the site lacked the space to accommodate protests (Hong Kong exiles turned out in force to drive home the point). In the end, these local concerns didn’t count for much. The mega-embassy has proved impervious to everything thrown at it. The force majeure of national priorities meant this was always the likely destination.

The saga isn’t quite over. The Royal Mint Court Residents Association has sought two opinions from planning lawyer Charles Banner and is preparing to lodge a judicial review. Members, whose homes now stand on land owned by China, are now raising money to fund the action.

At a minimum, that’s likely to prolong the process by a few months – further irritating China, which has already railed at the UK government’s delay in delivering. Few who remember the Chinese embassy’s initial, unanimously rejected attempt to win local approval will lose sleep over that.

Whether the prospect of a legal challenge reflects the beauty of a democratic system with checks and balances or the decadence and sclerosis of a faded former imperial power is likely to depend on whether you sit in Beijing or Westminster. Or Tower Hamlets.