No facts about the Chinese Communist Party or its proposed embassy building in London, no reasonable concerns about location, blueprints, and likely facilitation of espionage and transnational repression will deter Prime Minister Keir Starmer, apparently.
Non-compromised process?
The Guardian reports that “China’s London super-embassy [is] almost certain to get go-ahead next week” despite the concerns of members of Parliament (January 13, 2025).
The green light for the super-embassy at Royal Mint Court near Tower Bridge would smooth relations before Keir Starmer’s visit to China, which is expected to take place at the end of January, but officials insist there has been no political input in the planning process….
Answering an urgent question from the shadow Home Office minister, Alicia Kearns, the planning minister, Matthew Pennycook, whose department is responsible for the process, said he could not comment on what was a “quasi-judicial” process.
Kearns secured the question after a report in the Daily Telegraph that unredacted plans for the embassy showed a network of more than 200 subterranean rooms, one of them alongside communication cables taking information to the City of London.
Pennycook said any new information would be assessed, but the embassy is expected to be given the go-ahead next week after a final consultation. MI5 is understood not to have any security concerns about the project, as revealed by the Guardian last year.
Kearns said the lack of concern was complacent, and that access to the cables underneath the embassy “would give the Chinese Communist party a launch pad for economic warfare against our nation”….
[Other MPs] focused primarily on the possible repercussions for residents originally from Hong Kong, Tibet or Xinjiang. Several said Chinese diplomatic missions had been used to target such diaspora populations before….
Pennycook said: “The planning process hasn’t been compromised. We will make a planning decision on the basis of the relevant propriety guidance.”
Is this for real: MI5 has no concerns about construction work that, in the words of Telegraph reporter Gareth Corfield, “would place Chinese officials just over one metre from the fibre-optic cables running beneath the pavement—raising the prospect that they could be tapped”?
What is MI5? What do the people do there? Is it some kind of knitting club?
Fiber-optic cables
The Telegraph found that the unredacted plans for the embassy “show that a single concealed chamber will sit directly alongside fibre-optic cables transmitting financial data to the City of London, as well as email and messaging traffic for millions of internet users.”
The same hidden room is fitted with hot-air extraction systems, possibly suggesting the installation of heat-generating equipment such as advanced computers used for espionage. The plans also show that China intends to demolish and rebuild the outer basement wall of the chamber, directly beside the fibre-optic cables.
From Barron’s:
“The government can claim today that they had no idea about these secret rooms, and we will take them at that word,” [Alicia Kearns] said. “But they cannot now say they have no power to protect us. Protect our economy, protect the British people, deny the Chinese Communist Party their embassy.”
In response, planning minister Matthew Pennycook said the government would not be commenting on speculation in the press about the secret rooms and said the government had “transparently sought” further information on the redacted drawings.
“If new, potentially relevant information is drawn to the department’s attention, it will be assessed,” he said.
For Pennycook, the government’s obligations in the matter begin and end at “transparently seeking” information about the CCP’s plans for the embassy. The Starmer administration may lack the information that it needs to confirm what is already abundantly obvious. But if any further information happens to fall into its lap—before January 20, 2026—sure, it’ll assess.
But to what effect? If CCP officials tell the prime minister, “Yes, we’re going to used the expanded new facilities to spy and set up cyberattacks; and yes, we’re going use some of those redacted rooms to beat up pro-democracy Chinese nationals who have escaped to your country,” Starmer’s response is likely to be “Well, try not to be too obvious about it.” This is in effect what his administration is already telling the CCP.
The go-ahead to build the proposed CCP embassy on the proposed location in London is a foregone conclusion given the Starmer administration’s record of appeasing the People’s Republic of China. This record includes a flimsily rationalized insistence on scuttling a long-in-the-works trial of two British men accused of spying on Parliament for the PRC government.
Also see:
The Telegraph: “Uncovered: Secret room beneath Chinese embassy that poses threat to City” (January 12, 2026)
