UK delays Chinese embassy ruling

23/8/2025 6:13

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.