Secret room in China's mega embassy plans for London raise security concerns

London, Jan 13 (PTI) The UK government’s own MPs on Tuesday raised serious security concerns in Parliament over China’s proposed “mega embassy” in the heart of London, as allegedly unredacted plans for the construction appeared to show a secret room in the basement.

According to UK media reports, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is all set to approve the proposed construction near the Tower of London ahead of a planned visit to Beijing later this month.

Sarah Champion, among nine Labour members of Parliament who have written to Communities Secretary Steve Reed to reject the new super embassy plans, raised the issue in the House of Commons to flag China as a “hostile state” that is “terrorising” people in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

“Multiple government agencies and government departments have raised concerns about this mega embassy; our international partners have raised concerns about it,” said Champion, who chairs the Commons International Development Committee.

“Every security briefing I had identifies China as a hostile state to the UK. I am in no doubt that this mega embassy should not be allowed to go ahead. Internationally, China is terrorising people of Hong Kong. It is terrorising democratic people in Taiwan and it is terrorising some people already in the UK.

“I want my government to stand up to bullies, not reward them. We need to be seeing rules, limits put in place around China to stop this behaviour, not rewarding them with the embassy that they so dearly want,” she said.

In response, Housing Minister Mathew Pennycook declined to comment on a “live case” but stressed that there would be no compromise on national security.

"We need a consistent position on China which cannot be boiled down to one word. We recognise that China poses a series of threats to UK national security and we challenge these robustly," he told Parliament.

“China also presents opportunities to the UK as the world's second-largest economy and the UK's third-largest trading partner. We will therefore continue to develop a consistent and pragmatic approach to economic engagement without compromising our national security," he said.

The parliamentary intervention on Tuesday came as a report in 'The Daily Telegraph’ claimed to reveal detailed plans for an underground complex below the diplomatic site which has been “redacted in all publicly available versions”.

The drawings 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 newspaper reports.

“The unredacted plans reveal a concealed room running immediately alongside the fibre-optic cables critical to the City and Canary Wharf. 'Telegraph' readers don’t need me to spell out the obvious threats posed, nor China’s subterfuge – so why does the Labour government,” questioned Alicia Kearns, the UK’s shadow national security minister.

The Opposition Conservative Party MP told the newspaper that granting approval for such an embassy would hand China “a launchpad for economic warfare at the heart of the central nervous system of our critical national infrastructure”.

A decision on Beijing’s proposals for the extensive development at the site of the Royal Mint Court in London has been delayed repeatedly over security concerns.

China bought the 20,000 square metres of land at the historic site in 2018 for 225 million pounds and submitted plans to the local Tower Hamlets Council to turn the site into a much larger London embassy than its current location at Portland Place, near Baker Street.

After those plans were rejected and amid local protests, the government had “called in” the proposals for a review – a move reserved for planning applications involving issues of national significance.

It has recently emerged that the MI5 and MI6 security services did not raise any formal objections to the plans and Downing Street believes that consolidating China’s diplomatic premises onto one single site would, in fact, offer some security advantages.

Starmer is therefore expected to green light the mega embassy next week, ahead of the first trip to Beijing by a British prime minister in eight years.

China has previously dismissed all espionage claims, with an embassy spokesperson saying that “anti-China elements are always keen on slandering and attacking” the country. PTI AK GSP GSP