What the hell is the British government thinking? Signs are that it will approve this 614,000 square foot (5.5-acre) communist Chinese monstrosity, in a prime location just across from the Tower of London and near the financial district, that if completed would be the biggest embassy in Europe.
China’s first planning application to develop the site was rejected by Tower Hamlets council, an independent non-political body, in 2022, and again in 2024 but rather than amend the plan or appeal, China just waited, then resubmitted an identical application in August 2024, two weeks after Labor came to power.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government had “called in” the planning application, giving it the ultimate say on whether it gets a greenlight.
Of course, only a leftist Labor government would even consider it.
The Chinese government purchased the old Royal Mint Court for £255 million in 2018 and plans to convert it into its new embassy to replace its much smaller location it has occupied since 1877.
As The New York Times reported:
It was the site of Britain’s Royal Mint, where coins were struck from 1810 to 1975. It sits atop the ruins of a Cistercian abbey dating to the 14th century, as well as a burial ground from the Black Death. And from the 16th century to the early 18th century, it was a supply yard for the Royal Navy.
In addition to a cultural center and housing for 200 staff, as the BBC notes, “in the basement, behind security doors, there are also rooms with no identified use.”
Security experts and senior Republicans in the U.S. have sounded the alarm, warning that allowing China to use this site as its embassy (making it sovereign territory of China), would allow China to turn it into a massive spy base.
It would be especially able to infiltrate the U.K.’s financial system by tapping into fiber optic cables carrying sensitive data for firms in the City of London and Canary Wharf, which together form the world’s second-largest financial center and the nerve center of the city.
As BBC reported:
[The Royal Mint Court] site once housed Barclays Bank’s trading floor, so it was wired directly into the UK’s financial infrastructure. Nearby, a tunnel has, since 1985, carried fibre optic cables under the Thames serving hundreds of City firms.
And in the grounds of the Court, is a five-storey brick building – the [British Telecom] Wapping Telephone Exchange that serves the City of London.
The extensive underground facilities at the site would easily facilitate clandestine access to fiber-optic cables and would likely house Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) or Ministry of Public Security (MPS) operation rooms and collection centers.
A recent CSIS report notes that:
China could also design parts of the building to optimize for intelligence collection, such as multistory buildings optimized for line-of-sight signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection. In previously submitted architectural plans, China proposed constructing a seven-story Embassy House featuring a rooftop structure of unclear purpose. It could house additional floors, including sensitive communications and collection equipment. Part of the proposed Embassy House faces directly northwest, which may provide unobstructed views of 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin) and other key buildings in London’s financial district. This tactic has precedent: In 2022, Beijing sought to construct a 70-foot white pagoda in Washington, D.C.’s National Arboretum—a project ultimately blocked after the FBI determined it could be used to spy on Congress.
Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith warned that the embassy could jeopardize intelligence sharing with the United States and the broader Five Eyes alliance.
CSIS adds:
On June 7, a senior Trump administration official voiced concern, stating that the United States is “deeply concerned about providing China with potential access to the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Times also reported that President Trump previously urged Starmer to reject the proposal during trade talks in May. Should the project be approved, the Trump administration may have more reservations about sharing intelligence with the United Kingdom, fearing that China could gain access to highly secret U.S. sources and methods.
In addition to its massive espionage potential, the new embassy creates other serious concerns.
The new premises, ringed with CCTV cameras, are already being patrolled by Chinese security guards. Many fear the new site could be used to surveil, track, harass and possibly detain Chinese, Tibetan or other dissidents living in the U.K.
“This is not just a building; this is an extension of the Chinese Communist Party’s power in the U.K.,” said Chloe Cheung, a representative of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.
Steve Tsang, a political scientist and historian who is director of London’s SOAS China Institute, says he can see why people from Hong Kong, or certain other backgrounds, may be uncomfortable with the new embassy.
He says some embassy staff would be tasked with monitoring Chinese students and dissidents in the U.K. (likely harassing and intimidating them) and they’d also target U.K. citizens, such as scientists, businesspeople, and those with influence, to advance China’s interests.
Whether they would detain or attack anyone on British soil is the big question, but in 2022 a pro-democracy demonstrator was dragged on to the grounds of the Chinese Consulate in Manchester and beaten by staff members.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Londanistan is beyond hope anyway.
No super spy base & bad for NATO too
NO
As with the Democrat Party in the United States the Labor Party in the UK has been compromised by the CCP.