Xi intervention clinches approval for London embassy

February 04, 2025 22:09

In 2018, China paid 255 million pounds to buy the former Royal Mint in London with the aim of turning it into the largest embassy in Europe. Fierce objections from the local government, NGOs and Conservative politicians have prevented implementation of the project.

But a request from President Xi Jinping to British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and a visit by Chancellor Rachel Reeves to Beijing in January have removed the obstacles.

The Royal Mint Court, a historic building, sits on a prime site close to the Tower of London and the Thames river. It covers an area of 600,000 square feet. The vast project, designed by David Chipperfield Architects, includes a large embassy building, a cultural exchange centre and a long seven-storey building with 225 residences. It will require large-scale demolition of two buildings to make way for the new residences. The imposing Royal Mint was completed in 1809.

In December 2022, the local Tower Hamlet Council rejected the embassy’s planning application for the site. It said that it would adversely affect safety and security and place increased strain on local police: it would adversely affect tourists due to concerns over protests and terrorism: increase traffic congestion due to potential protests and events: and the adverse impact on heritage.

Tower Hamlets has the largest Muslim population of any local authority in Britain, at 39.9 per cent. Many are angry at Beijing’s treatment of its Uighur Muslim population.

Peter Golds, Tower Hamlets councillor said: “this will be the largest embassy in Europe, a centre of potential disinformation located not only in a world heritage site but adjacent to the City of London, a world financial centre. The government must come clean on what discussions they have had with the Chinese government on the matter.”

After the rejection, Beijing criticised the then Conservative government for not intervening in its favour.

On December 9, 2024, the Council rejected a similar application for the same reasons. The Metropolitan Police also objected, because of concerns over potential protests spilling over into neighbouring busy roads and the Tower of London, a popular tourist attraction.

But, in mid-January, the Council and the Police suddenly withdrew their objection, after the intervention of the central government. The final decision now rests with Angela Rayner, Secretary of State for Housing and Communities and Local Government.

On January 11, Chancellor Reeves met Vice-Premier He Lifeng in Beijing. Her department said that the meeting led to removal of market access barriers across areas such as agri-food, helping British business compete on level-playing field and grow exports and agreements worth £600 million to the UK economy over the next five years, which would deliver up to £1 billion.

During a face-to-face meeting with Starmer in Brazil during the G20 summit on November 18, Xi raised the issue of the embassy and asked him to speed up the approval process.

The project has been opposed by members of the opposition Conservative Party and NGOs. Mark Sabah, director of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, said: “We have Chinese spies on trial, a British citizen Jimmy Lai in jail in Hong Kong, bounties from the Communist Party on the heads of people living in the UK, interference on our campuses and an ever growing list of transgressions by China and the Communist Party against the UK. This must be stopped immediately, before it is too late.”

Starmer and his colleagues have evidently decided that economic and business factors outweigh human rights and Chinese interference.

In the July-September quarter since Starmer’s Labour Party won the general election, UK GDP registered no annual growth. In the April-June 2024 quarter, growth was only 0.4 per cent.

The UK business community badly wants better relations with the world’s second largest economy.
In her October budget, Rachel Reeves announced tax increases of 40 billion pounds, the biggest tax-raising fiscal event in more than 30 years. She said that higher taxes and more borrowing were necessary to rebuild stretched public services and plug the £22 billion black hole she said had been left by the previous Conservative government.

The country is heavily in debt. According to official figures, government debt accounted for 101 per cent of nominal GDP as of September 2024, up from 28.3 per cent in December 1990.

Britain badly needs new investment and new export markets. It needs Chinese students at its universities and Chinese tourists spending at its hotels, shops and restaurants.

The decision on the new embassy now rests in the hands of Starmer and his ministers. “A final decision will be made in due course,” a government spokesman said.

A Hong Kong-based writer, teacher and speaker.