WHY is the Government set to approve an adversary’s application to build the largest embassy in Europe beside sensitive telecommunications and on a historically and culturally significant site (of the former Royal Mint and a current monastic order)? It is a site which is inconvenient for diplomacy, and would be better utilised for a hotel overlooking the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.
And why has the Government redacted from China’s blueprints the secret rooms next to said telecommunications?
Here is the suspicion.
Sir Keir Starmer sacrifices national security in the hope of China’s investment, Britain’s economic renewal and his re-election in 2029.
On the campaign in 2024, Starmer blamed the Conservative Party for colder relations with China.
China re-submitted its application almost as soon as Starmer took the premiership, after being turned down twice by previous administrations, and warned of ‘consequences’ if its application is turned down again.
Starmer denies that trade and investment influences his Government’s decisions on national security. Yet leaks and anonymous sources have suggested that in September his National Security Adviser scuppered the prosecution of two Britons indicted for spying for China in order to secure an official visit by the Prime Minister to Beijing this month.
The National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, happens to be Starmer’s chief negotiator with China; and unelected to boot.
The Government’s prioritisation of investment over security is suggested, inadvertently, in Starmer’s annual speech on foreign policy, at the Mansion House, on December 1. Even though the text claims to put security first, the writing signals to China that engagement comes first.
Just a day after the speech, the Government announced it would decide in January whether to approve China’s super-embassy. The delay is procedural and the remaining consultations are local not national.
The Home Office and Foreign Office – after waiting on MI5 and MI6 respectively – had submitted their formal approvals in November but the Housing Secretary, Steve Reed, had effectively neglected local objections. His approval was consequently delayed from December 10 until January 20.
Starmer hopes to make his first visit to Beijing in the days thereafter.
‘Coincidence,’ says the government!
Now, just a week before the Housing Secretary’s decision, somebody leaked the unredacted plans to the Daily Telegraph.
The leak shows that Beijing intends to construct 208 underground rooms beneath its vast diplomatic complex (over five acres).
One of the rooms runs adjacent and parallel to fibre-optic cables carrying data between the City and the rest of the world.
These cables transmit financial transactions to and from the City of London and Canary Wharf, email, text, and social media traffic for millions of users, and data flowing through the London Internet Exchange.
Tapping these cables would give any government economic and thence political leverage because of bank settlement data; transaction updates for salaries, withdrawals and payments, and the codes and signatures that make global finance work.
The plans show that China intends to demolish and rebuild the outer basement wall of this chamber — about one metre from the cables themselves.
This is the central nervous system of Britain’s digital economy.
Fibre-optic cables can be diverted, lightly tapped, or even bent so that light leaks from the fibre can be read using specialised equipment.
You would never know it was happening.
This is not Cold War paranoia or spy-movie clichés. You can bet that GCHQ taps the telecommunications passing through Britain between America and Europe (and thence Africa).
The site offers other opportunities for China. It borders the Wapping Telephone Exchange on three sides, which serves hundreds of firms in the City, such as Lloyd’s of London.
The most striking feature of the planned chamber is its hot-air extraction systems, as would be needed to cool the hundreds of computers and servers needed to process and store stolen data (or legitimate embassy communications).
Perhaps China’s need is legitimate.
But why wouldn’t China exploit British telecommunications?
Any serious intelligence service would be tempted — especially one belonging to a state that the Government itself still rates as a ‘geostrategic challenge’ (despite downgrading China from ‘threat’).
China is a country that exploited Huawei hardware to spy on foreign telecommunications. It uses social media to develop Western officials as sources, it has hacked Parliamentary emails, and it has been accused of using Parliamentary staffers and advisers to spy on MPs.
Britain’s intelligence services have warned the Government, since China bought the site in 2018, that China is planning a spy centre. This was revealed by Dominic Cummings in October. No official has denied his revelation.
Alicia Kearns, a shadow Home Office minister, describes the project as handing China ‘a launchpad for economic warfare at the heart of our critical national infrastructure’.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative MP whose criticisms of Huawei and the persecution of Uighurs and Hong Kong Chinese resulted in sanctions by China, has accused the Government of ‘lying from start to finish’ about China’s renewed application.
Labour MPs have also called on the Government to reject China’s application.
Local objections give the Government an excuse to reject the application but the Housing Secretary and other ministers keep repeating the line that the Home Office and Foreign Office have‘identified and addressed’ all risks.
The journalist who revealed the unredacted blueprints says he gets the sense from anonymous sources that the Government is consciously sacrificing security for investment.
It would mean that China’s super-embassy is set to be approved on Tuesday in defiance of local and Parliamentary objections.
Thereafter, the biggest stink will be raised by America, followed by other members of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing network.
Huawei provides a precedent. Tony Blair gave Huawei almost monopolistic contracts on 5G telecommunications and the Government’s own infrastructure.
David Cameron confirmed this decision in spite of revelations of Huawei’s spying elsewhere.
Theresa May did the same, in spite of her government admitting that Huawei is a ‘high-risk vendor’.
In 2020, Boris Johnson confirmed May’s decision even after the US government banned Huawei from operating in America – and restricted intelligence sharing with Britain.
Fortunately, British opposition and American pressure exploded (in the last year of Donald Trump’s first administration), sufficient to force the Government to U-turn: it committed to exclude Huawei – but on a schedule that won’t be completed until 2027.
Donald Trump is coming into his second year of his second term. Expect his administration to once again restrict intelligence-sharing with Britain.
That will come too late to stop approval of the embassy.
Once Starmer returns from Beijing, abuzz with a new (but overblown) deal, expect him to keep the glow going a few weeks, before promising ‘safeguards’ and ‘checks’ against China’s exploitation of our telecommunications.
Come 2027, when the Government finally gets Huawei out, perhaps it could capitalise on the achievement by raising a stink about builders encroaching on the telecommunications in the City.
Is it too fanciful to imagine that the Government would hope voters reward it at the General Election for its strong defence of Britain’s security in 2027?
Voters would do better to remember the scandal of 2026.
