London – Despite fears of Chinese espionage and hacking, the British government he gave permission China to build a huge new embassy in the heart of London on Tuesday. The mega-embassy design will see it take up an entire city block with views of the Shard, Britain’s tallest building on the banks of the River Thames.
It will be China’s largest embassy in Europe.
The UK Government’s decision ended a saga that began in 2018 with Beijing’s purchase of the former Royal Mint building for nearly $350 million. After the COVID pandemic, the UK government – amid several changes in leadership – delayed the final approval of the project as intelligence experts, members of the Chinese diaspora and the future residents of the new embassy. they expressed their concerns and protested.
Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, previously urged the government to scrap plans for China to build MI6 at the site, which sits atop buried cables that transmit financial and commercial data through the UK capital.
“The fact that the Chinese embassy is sitting on those cables, which could be attacked in extremis, is a significant problem,” he told CBS News in early December, when the deadline for the government’s decision was extended to this month.
With a greater physical presence, Beijing could also employ more Chinese diplomatic staff, who would be free to move around Britain thanks to diplomatic visas.
“If it has a very large embassy, there could be a very large number, and then go to third countries, apparently on vacation or whatever, or travel, and do things outside of the country where they’re accredited,” Dearlove said.
“They’re ordinary diplomats, ordinary attachés, really trained intelligence operatives,” he said.
UK officials respond to concerns about Chinese Embassy
Responding to intelligence concerns, the heads of intelligence, cyber and security agencies MI5 and GCHQ admitted on Tuesday that British national security risks linked to the new Chinese embassy could not be completely eliminated and said it would be impossible to try to do so.
“It would be irrational to reduce the ‘risk posed by the embassy’ to zero when so many other threat vectors are so central to the national security risks we face in today’s age,” GCHQ director Anne Keast-Butler and MI5 director general Sir Ken McCallum said in a joint letter to government ministers. They also said that the work to mitigate the risks was “expert, professional and proportionate”.
Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images 
Separately, due to political reasons, 240 page report The UK’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said decisions about embassy admissions should not be based on a country’s style of governance.
“Planning law and national and development planning policies, and for its signatories, the Vienna Convention, which is based on reciprocity, are nation-neutral,” the report says. “A use cannot be discriminated against on the basis of its intended user. Otherwise, this could create an intolerable situation where one nation’s embassy is permitted but another nation’s embassy is denied.”
“In this regard, any ethical or similar objection to providing an embassy for a particular country cannot be a material planning consideration,” the report said. “It would not be legitimate to refuse permission because it would be for a Chinese embassy… The same would be true for any other specific country seeking embassy use through the planning system.”
The Chinese embassy’s approval draws criticism
Despite the ministry’s report, British opposition parties criticized the embassy’s admission as an “act of cowardice” and that of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.biggest mistake yet.”
Anti-Beijing activists and dissident groups reacted with frustration and anger. As the Chinese government has clamped down on freedoms in Hong Kong, Tibet and China’s Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang, many have sought refuge in the UK.
“It’s certainly disappointing, but it’s not surprising,” said Carmen Lau, a former Hong Kong politician living in self-imposed exile in London.
He said he believed the UK had accepted the embassy so Starmer could keep his planned trip to Beijing later this month. The UK has also been seeking approval for a new embassy in Beijing.
“But it’s a huge deal for me,” Lau said. “China’s economic favors / Returning to the UK is not worth giving up a large part of national security concerns.”
The UK has also become home to the world’s largest Hong Kong diaspora community, with nearly 200,000 people estimated to have fled in the past five years following the mass pro-democracy protests of 2019.
“The (Hong Kong) diaspora would definitely be affected,” Lau said. “I have heard of people planning to go into secondary exile. The reason is that we are seeing Chinese agents and the PRC (People’s Republic of China) itself getting more daring in reaching out to us in the UK.”
“This embassy will be a daily reminder of China’s increasing presence and influence over the UK government,” said Tenzin Rabga Tashi of the Tibetan advocacy group Free Tibet.
“Watching how members of my community behave will remind me not to be so active defensively,” Tashi said. “You know, many of them have family inside Tibet, so they won’t be able to live as freely as they can in the UK, knowing that China has more eyes, not just on them, but on their friends, their families. This system of fear, this system of repression has grown in the UK and will continue to expand as long as the Chinese mega-embassy is here.”
“I’m hurt…absolutely outraged,” said Rahima Mahmut, executive director of Stop Uyghur Genocide.
According to human rights groups, starting in 2014, around one million Uighur Muslims gathered. Xinjiang and imprisoned. Those who could escape, and thousands settled in the United States.
“The approval of the mega embassy is very shocking and feels like a deep betrayal,” Mahmut said.
After the approval of the British Government, the Chinese Embassy in London he said in a statement that he stated that his request was accepted.