UK delays decision on China’s proposed mega-embassy in London over transparency concerns

The British government on Friday (August 22) postponed a decision on China’s plan to build its biggest embassy in Europe, in London, citing a lack of transparency in the submitted building designs.According to Reuters, the decision on the project was delayed after Beijing refused to clarify why parts of the plans for the two-hectare site had been blacked out. The revised deadline now gives China until October 21 to provide further details, compared to the earlier September 9 deadline set by the Department for Housing.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who also serves as the housing secretary, had earlier flagged that two of the proposed embassy buildings — the cultural exchange building and Embassy House — were “greyed out” in the drawings and requested clarifications within two weeks, The Guardian reported.

The Chinese government has argued that the information already provided is “sufficient to identify the main uses” of the buildings and that furnishing a complete internal layout is unnecessary. Reuters cited a letter from DP9, the planning consultancy working on behalf of Beijing.
China has been pursuing the embassy project since 2018, after acquiring the former Royal Mint site for about £250 million ($318 million). If completed, it would become Beijing’s largest embassy in Europe.The project has drawn criticism from rights groups and activists in the UK, as well as concerns from allies such as the US and the Netherlands. Hong Kong, Uyghur, Taiwanese, and Tibetan activists have warned that the embassy could threaten British national security and intensify Beijing’s repression abroad.“The deadline extension is a welcome move, but ultimately permission to build the mega-embassy must not go ahead,” a Tibetan-British resident of London told CNBC-TV18, on condition of anonymity. He was among more than 1,000 people who joined a protest rally against the project on Saturday, marching from the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office to Whitehall.

Tsering Passang, Founder and Chair of the Global Alliance for Tibet and Persecuted Minorities, said: “Chinese embassies serve as watchdogs to control and intimidate minorities… It (the proposed mega-embassy) is a towering threat to freedom, a hub for surveillance, and a bold attempt by the Chinese Communist Party to extend its authoritarian grip into the heart of London.”

Tenzin Rabga Tashi, Campaigns Lead at Free Tibet, added: “If the UK government allows the project to go ahead, they are saying that money and power matter more than human rights. They are saying that Britain is open for business with dictatorships.”

In June, the White House voiced concern that the project could give Beijing access to sensitive UK communications. The Dutch parliament also raised objections to the embassy’s proposed location.

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