A “super-embassy” China wants to build in London includes plans for a “secret tunnel” and “spy dungeons”, an MP has claimed. Precise details of two suites of basement rooms which aren’t labelled on plans, as well as the tunnel, appear on planning documents which have been “redacted for security purposes”.
Beijing’s plans for the embassy on the site of the Royal Mint near the Tower of London were blocked by the previous Conservative government. Intelligence services and Scotland Yard raised concerns about sensitive data cables nearby which might be vulnerable to attack as well as “operational” issues about the impact of protests on the local area. Ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ visit to China in January, the application was revived. President Xi Jinping reportedly lobbied for the embassy personally, according to the Mail. The Conservatives have accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of pursuing a policy of appeasement towards state bullying and intimidation from China. The party claimed the “dungeons” could be used for eavesdropping or interrogations.
Shadow Communities Secretary Kevin Hollinrake claimed in a letter to the PM that Downing Street has been “caught red-handed” in a bid to “ram this mega-embassy through the planning system”.
He wrote: “Labour have disregarded democratic concerns – through a contempt for local democracy, and by failing to defend free speech in Britain.
“It would be a barbarous irony that a site so close to the medieval Tower of London could become a modern-day dungeon under a Starmer Government.”
Mr Hollinrake described the lack of information about the rooms in the planning documents as “striking”. He asked: “Why does the use of the basement rooms need to be redacted, given they are not in public sight and there is no public access?”
He added: “This subterranean zone will undeniably be used for intelligence work by the Chinese Communist Party and its arm, the United Front Work Department.
“But there is also a chilling prospect that it could be used for the abduction, intimidation or torture of anti-Chinese dissidents living in the United Kingdom.”
The MP pointed to an incident in 2022 when a Hong Kong pro-democracy protester was dragged into the grounds of the Chinese consulate in Manchester and beaten up.
Rights charity Amnesty International has warned students from Hong Kong and China in the UK have been “intimidated, harrassed and silenced” by Chinese authorities.
A Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “Applications for a new Chinese embassy in Tower Hamlets have been called in for Ministers to decide. A final decision will be made in due course.”
A Chinese embassy spokesman told the Mail: “Anti-China elements are always keen on slandering and attacking China.”