China wants a

The UK once again delayed its decision last week on whether to give the green light to China’s push for a massive new embassy in the heart of London. It would not only be the largest Chinese embassy in Europe, but also one of the largest in the world.

Beijing’s hope, however, still hangs in frustrated limbo after three decision delays, six major protests against the embassy and and last week Prime Minister Keir Starmer called China “a country that poses real threats to the national security of the United Kingdom.” His defense minister also cited “the complexities of the national security implications.”

Critics fear that the so-called “super embassy” could serve as a super center for intelligence gathering, physically and technologically, impacting not only the United Kingdom, but also the continent.

“There are significant fiber optic cables running beneath the site or very close to it, likely carrying massive amounts of important and valuable data,” said Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of Britain’s MI6, the U.K.’s foreign intelligence agency.

Dearlove has called on the UK government to reject ambitions for a Chinese embassy, ​​with cables possibly transmitting sensitive financial and commercial data through London.

“Having a Chinese embassy on top of those cables, which could be attacked in extremis, is a major problem,” he added.

With a greater physical presence, Beijing could also employ more Chinese diplomatic staff, who would have the freedom of movement permitted by their visas.

“If you have a very large embassy, ​​there could be a very large number and then they go to third countries, apparently on vacation or whatever, or to travel, and do things outside of the country that they are accredited to,” Dearlove said.

“They pretend to be ordinary diplomats, ordinary attachés, who are actually highly trained intelligence personnel,” he said.

Beijing could also more easily attack the defense and foreign ministries’ communications using facilities located inside a larger embassy, ​​said Nigel Inkster, former director of operations and intelligence at MI6 and now senior adviser for cyber security and China at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies.

“Not all systems, not all government systems use the Internet,” Inkster said. “Most sensitive information is isolated. In other words, it goes to systems that have no connection to the public Internet, and therefore if you are going to try to access them, you will have to get closer to where they are actually generated.”

“Would China like to get that data?” he added. “Yes, because China’s appetite for acquiring data on other countries is limitless. They are completely promiscuous about the foreign data they collect.”

The proposed embassy site is in the heart of London

The British reaction also arises from history and pride. The site of China’s future embassy overlooks the iconic Tower of London and The Shard. It is the former headquarters of the Royal Mint, which engraved coins with the monarch’s face as a physical manifestation of the crown’s authority.

In 2018, the government sold the land to Beijing for nearly $350 million, making the more than five-acre site a physical stronghold of Chinese state power in the West.

“One of the reasons I object – perhaps the main reason – is the symbolism of allowing the Chinese Communist government such a prominent position on the outskirts of the city in such a prominent building,” Dearlove said. “It sends completely the wrong signals.”

The architectural renderings, which occupy an entire city block and stretch across five acres, indicate that China’s new embassy would dwarf its embassy in Washington, D.C. about three times and its current embassy in London about 10 times. It took our News themezone team more than nine minutes to walk the perimeter.

The schematics show plans for a cultural center and more than 200 apartments for embassy staff, a feature not common in Western government embassies but employed by some authoritarian governments, including Russia, North Korea and Cuba, to keep employees on hand.

News themezone got a first-hand look at the embassy’s future residences, buildings that sit on the site owned by the Chinese government. They are currently empty.

Mark Nygate, a 28-year-old resident next door in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, gave News themezone a tour of his building and the indoor parking lot that abuts the Royal Mint grounds. A simple low wooden fence separates them.

“I call it China’s little picket fence,” he said jokingly.

He and his neighbors fear that the Chinese government will eventually expel them.

“The idea is that at some point they will want to make this border harder for them and make their staff safer,” he said. “They could try to buy us out.”

Fear of China’s exiles and dissidents

Thousands of anti-embassy protesters, Chinese dissidents and exiles marched through central London last weekend, galvanized again after the delay of Starmer’s most recent decision. Many held large flags showing support for Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet.

“I was under the impression that the UK government was prepared to betray us,” said Tenzin Ragba, campaign leader for Free Tibet, a nonprofit calling for an end to what the group describes as the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the dilution of Tibetan culture since the 1950s.

“China is a systemic rival to democracy,” said Carmen Lau, a former Hong Kong pro-democracy politician now living in exile in the United Kingdom. “It would not simply open the door for an autocracy or an authoritarian regime to have a base in the heart of its capital.”

Since he fled Hong Kong after the failed 2019 pro-democracy protests, Beijing has been watching Lau in London, he says, seeking to stop anti-China voices abroad.

“I’ve been followed on the streets of London,” he said. “They don’t send people with Chinese or Asian faces to follow us, they just send someone random in the community.”

Lau said her neighbors also received a wanted letter, asking them to hand her over to the Chinese embassy, ​​for a reward equivalent to about $125,000.

“I was very afraid to talk to them after these incidents happened. Because, you know, who knows who will be really tempted by the rewards,” he said.

Several other former Hong Kong pro-democracy leaders have similar bounties on their heads. The UK has become home to the world’s largest Hong Kong diaspora community; It is estimated that almost 200,000 people have fled in the last five years.

London also wants a new embassy

The UK government has delayed its final decision on the Chinese embassy proposal until January 20.

Prime Minister Starmer has proposed a trip to Beijing just nine days later. It would be the first time a British prime minister has visited China since 2018, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government hopes China will approve its own plan for a new embassy in Beijing.

Starmer’s visit may depend on whether Beijing gets what it wants in London first.