Tower Hamlets (Parliament Politics Magazine) – The UK government has delayed its decision on China’s proposed super embassy in Tower Hamlets due to redacted planning documents and local opposition.
Due to requests for further details regarding “greyed out” portions of the application, the government has postponed making a judgment on the resurrected plans for a massive Chinese “super embassy” on the location of the former Royal Mint Court.
Security concerns have been heightened by President Xi Jinping’s personal lobbying in support of the proposed embassy, which would be located close to three significant data centers and between London‘s financial centers of the City and Canary Wharf.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who is also Housing Secretary, was supposed to decide on the plan by September 9 after the previous Tory government rejected it.
Opposition has also come from overseas. Both the White House and the Dutch government have warned against allowing China to build an embassy so close to major financial and political centres.
In May, a senior US official said:
“The United States is deeply concerned about providing China with potential access to the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.”
The intended use of “two suites of anonymous unlabelled basement rooms and a tunnel” is suppressed “for security reasons” in the planning documents for the proposed embassy location.
In February, the plans were the subject of a 12-day public investigation. Approval is now thought to be recommended by a report by the Planning Inspectorate, an executive department of the Department for Housing, Communities, and Local Government.
The application was first denied by Tower Hamlets Council in 2022. Later, though, Ms. Rayner called in the case and used her ministerial authority to remove the local government from making the final decision.
Ms. Rayner asked the Chinese embassy for more information earlier this month, with a two-week deadline. She pointed out that two of the intended embassy buildings were “greyed out” in the designs.
Ms Rayner also queried redacted drawings in the application, telling the embassy’s planning consultancy to “identify precisely and comprehensively” which drawings were redacted and to explain the reasoning for such redactions, The Guardian reports.
The consultancy responded that it was “neither necessary nor appropriate” to issue full internal layout plans, adding:
“The applicant considers the level of detail shown on the unredacted plans is sufficient to identify the main uses.”
Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, one of numerous organizations that are adamantly against the plan, released this communication.
Mr De Pulford said:
“These explanations are far from satisfactory. The government set very few conditions and the Chinese didn’t even meet those. Now, to visit the abbey ruins, dissidents who want to visit will be on Chinese land, vulnerable to capture, out of the reach of UK authorities.”
After acquiring the Royal Mint property in 2018, China has been working to renovate it. It is believed that during his January visit to London, former Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi brought up the matter with Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
What specific sections of the embassy plans were redacted and why?
The specific sections of the Chinese super embassy plans that were redacted include parts of the basement area and internal layouts of two key buildings: the Cultural Exchange Building and Embassy House. These sections were marked “redacted for security reasons.”
The reasoning behind the redactions, according to the Chinese planning consultants, is that releasing detailed internal layout plans was deemed “unnecessary and inappropriate.” They stated the unredacted portions already identify the primary functions of the buildings, and further detail could compromise security.
Concerns have been raised that secretive parts of the embassy—such as the basement—could potentially be used for espionage or other security-threatening activities.