Headlines
UK delays Chinese embassy ruling after Beijing withholds detail
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on August 22, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Global Banking and Finance Review
Company
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on August 22, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
The UK delays its decision on China's embassy plans in London due to insufficient transparency from Beijing, amid security concerns.
By Andrew MacAskill
LONDON (Reuters) -The British government on Friday extended the deadline until October to decide on whether to approve China's plans to build the largest embassy in Europe in London after Beijing refused to fully explain why the plans contained blacked out areas.
China's plans to build a new embassy on the site of a two-century-old building near the Tower of London have stalled for the past three years because of opposition from local residents, lawmakers, and Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners in Britain.
Politicians in Britain and the U.S. have warned the government against allowing China to build the embassy on the site over concerns that it could be used as a base for spying.
DP9, the planning consultancy working for the Chinese government, said its client felt it would be inappropriate to provide full internal layout plans, saying additional drawings provided an acceptable level of detail, after the government asked why several areas were blacked out in drawings.
"The Applicant considers the level of detail shown on the unredacted plans is sufficient to identify the main uses," DP9 said in a letter to the government.
"In these circumstances, we consider it is neither necessary nor appropriate to provide additional more detailed internal layout plans or details."
The British government's department of housing said in reply it would now rule on whether the project can go ahead by October 21 rather than by September 9 because it needed more time to consider the responses.
Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group with ties to an international network of politicians critical of China which revealed the letter, said: "These explanations are far from satisfactory."
De Pulford, a long-standing critic of plans for the embassy, said the "assurances amount to 'trust me bro'".
The Chinese embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The embassy earlier this month said claims that the building could have "secret facilities" used to harm Britain's national security were "despicable slandering".
The Chinese government purchased Royal Mint Court in 2018 but its requests for planning permission to build the new embassy there were rejected by the local council in 2022. Chinese President Xi Jinping asked Prime Minister Keir Starmer last year to intervene.
Starmer's central government took control of the planning decision last year.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, Editing by William Maclean)
The British government has extended the deadline to decide on China's plans to build the largest embassy in Europe until October 21, after previously set for September 9.
Politicians in Britain and the U.S. have expressed concerns that the embassy could be used as a base for spying, leading to opposition from local residents and lawmakers.
DP9, the planning consultancy for the Chinese government, stated that the level of detail provided in the unredacted plans was sufficient to identify the main uses and that more detailed plans were unnecessary.
The Chinese embassy described claims that the building could have 'secret facilities' as 'despicable slandering' and did not immediately respond to requests for further comments.
The Chinese government purchased Royal Mint Court in 2018, but its requests for planning permission were rejected by the local council in 2022.
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