As Britain’s new Labor government bids to reset long-fraught ties with China amid a suspected spy scandal, another issue could mar relations: Beijing’s controversial plans to open the largest embassy in the UK. China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to a sprawling historic site in the shadow of the Tower of London.
The move east to the complex opposite the UNESCO World Heritage site housing the Tower, and adjacent to the iconic Tower Bridge, has sparked fierce opposition from nearby residents, rights groups, China-hawks and others.
Already rejected by local officials, it now appears to be a key issue in bilateral ties, and featured in early talks between President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Prime Minister Keir Starmer. It comes amid a new row over allegations of suspected spying by a Chinese businessman with links to Prince Andrew.
Photo: AFP
The British leader, elected in July, wants more engagement with Beijing, following years of deteriorating relations over various issues, in particular China’s rights crackdown in Hong Kong.
Last month Starmer became the first UK prime minister since 2018 to meet Xi, when the pair held talks at the G20 in Brazil. With TV cameras rolling, he said that Xi had raised the embassy in an earlier call and reassured him that his government had “taken action” by “calling in” its embassy application.
The decision means a national planning inspector will now hold a public inquiry into the scheme, but Communities Secretary Angela Rayner will make the final decision.
Governments can “call in” developments on various grounds, including issues going beyond “local importance” and impacting other governments or national security.
‘SHOCKED’
Despite Starmer also telling Xi that “we have to follow the legal process and timeline,” the intervention has unnerved opponents of the new embassy.
“I was a bit shocked,” said exiled Hong Kong dissident Simon Cheng (鄭文傑), who lives near the proposed embassy.
“I knew that China’s... plans would be quite important [in bilateral relations]. I hadn’t ever thought that it would be escalated to the top level.”
He worries Starmer’s emphasis on economic growth, and improved China ties, could trump other considerations.
A former British consulate staffer in Hong Kong granted UK asylum after allegedly being tortured by Chinese secret police, Cheng also fears “massive surveillance” at the new site. Housing the Royal Mint — the official maker of British coins — for nearly two centuries, it was earlier home to a 1348-built Cistercian abbey but is currently derelict.
Beijing bought the site for a reported US$327 million in 2018.
It comprises several “listed buildings” of historical note, and before the government’s intervention, any changes had required permission from the local authority, Tower Hamlets Council.
In 2022 its councilors unanimously rejected China’s plans, which include designs by the renowned David Chipperfield Architects firm. In July, Beijing resubmitted the proposals almost entirely unchanged. Conservative councilor Peter Golds has been a persistent opponent.
“Can you imagine the French or the Italians permitting the most famous World Heritage site in their country to have a gigantic embassy next to it? And not just any embassy!” he said.
“It’s a prestige site... it’d be a bit like us going to the Forbidden City,” he added, referring to Beijing’s imperial palace complex. “What an insult!”
‘OVERPOWERING’
The site adjoins a housing complex, and residents are most concerned about security implications.
“A small explosion from a car or a van would cause devastation,” Dave Lake, who leads a residents’ association fighting the plans, said, voicing concerns that the embassy could become a focus of anti-China protests.
Residents recently began fundraising to pay for the legal representation now needed to maintain what Lake considers a David-versus-Goliath battle.
“It’s overpowering — it’s almost as if they’re stamping on you,” he said.
There are reports Beijing intends to link the issue with British plans to redevelop its embassy and ambassador’s residence there.
A Chinese embassy statement said “host countries have the international obligation to support and facilitate the building of the premises of diplomatic missions.”
It added approval would help promote “friendship between the Chinese and British people and the development of bilateral relations.”
James Jennion, associate fellow at the British Foreign Policy Group, said it was “clearly a priority” for China, noting embassies are “status symbols.”
He added the government “calling in” the application “made this more of a ‘bilateral issue’ as well as likely creating future “domestic headaches.”
“This will make it tougher to assess based on practical factors, and will certainly be a defining feature of UK-China relations until a decision is made.”
June 2 to June 8 Taiwan’s woodcutters believe that if they see even one speck of red in their cooked rice, no matter how small, an accident is going to happen. Peng Chin-tian (彭錦田) swears that this has proven to be true at every stop during his decades-long career in the logging industry. Along with mining, timber harvesting was once considered the most dangerous profession in Taiwan. Not only were mishaps common during all stages of processing, it was difficult to transport the injured to get medical treatment. Many died during the arduous journey. Peng recounts some of his accidents in
“Why does Taiwan identity decline?”a group of researchers lead by University of Nevada political scientist Austin Wang (王宏恩) asked in a recent paper. After all, it is not difficult to explain the rise in Taiwanese identity after the early 1990s. But no model predicted its decline during the 2016-2018 period, they say. After testing various alternative explanations, Wang et al argue that the fall-off in Taiwanese identity during that period is related to voter hedging based on the performance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Since the DPP is perceived as the guardian of Taiwan identity, when it performs well,
A short walk beneath the dense Amazon canopy, the forest abruptly opens up. Fallen logs are rotting, the trees grow sparser and the temperature rises in places sunlight hits the ground. This is what 24 years of severe drought looks like in the world’s largest rainforest. But this patch of degraded forest, about the size of a soccer field, is a scientific experiment. Launched in 2000 by Brazilian and British scientists, Esecaflor — short for “Forest Drought Study Project” in Portuguese — set out to simulate a future in which the changing climate could deplete the Amazon of rainfall. It is
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on May 18 held a rally in Taichung to mark the anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20. The title of the rally could be loosely translated to “May 18 recall fraudulent goods” (518退貨ㄌㄨㄚˋ！). Unlike in English, where the terms are the same, “recall” (退貨) in this context refers to product recalls due to damaged, defective or fraudulent merchandise, not the political recalls (罷免) currently dominating the headlines. I attended the rally to determine if the impression was correct that the TPP under party Chairman Huang Kuo-Chang (黃國昌) had little of a
RSS