Here’s how Londoners will try to stop China’s massive embassy

LONDON — A huge Chinese embassy in the heart of London will cost British taxpayers millions of pounds and pose a threat to protesters standing up to repression, a court challenge aimed at halting the controversial development will argue.

The Royal Mint Court Resident’s Association — a 100-strong group of leaseholders living in apartments next to the 20,000 square meter complex near the Tower of London — has formally lodged its legal challenge after the British government decision granted Beijing permission to build the biggest embassy in Europe.

The residents’ group seeking to overturn China’s planning approval submitted a crowdfunded application for statutory and judicial review last week.

China — which bought the vast site that once smelted British currency for £255 million back in 2018 — can start building their embassy, but will have to halt work if the group’s challenge is successful.

The group’s challenge largely centers on the dozens of secret rooms redacted from designs for the sprawling complex, the filing, seen by POLITICO, suggests.

They argue planning permission was granted without fully considering what will be built. The fire risk from activities involving potentially hazardous materials “such as from cooking or laundry” could also “not only have potentially very serious consequences for human life and limb; it could also be devastating for the listed building,” they say.

Submerged cables

The group is also challenging the decision on the grounds it could cost British taxpayers millions of pounds to mitigate espionage fears.

In their filing, they estimate moving underground fiber optic cables that sit directly beside the embassy will run into “potentially hundreds of millions of pounds or more.”

Plans by the security service MI5 to relocate the cables — which transmit financial traffic to the banks of the City of London and Londoners’ email and messaging data — were first reported in the Times newspaper.

“This cost was an obviously material consideration, given that it flows directly from the decision to approve the Proposed Development. It was irrational and thus unlawful not to take it into account,” the residents’ legal case states.

They also argue it was unlawful for Communities Secretary Steve Reed — who gave the plans the green light — not to consider it was the Chinese state applying for use, something they say is “obviously material” to the decision.

They say enforcing any conditions on the site will be severely constrained because it has been designated a diplomatic premise — something then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson granted in 2018.

Policing “planning mischiefs” by China would also be difficult given the Vienna Convention, which allows sanctions against diplomats, is retrospective rather than preventative. 

It is both “legally misplaced” and relies solely on apportioning trust to the Chinese state, the claim written by senior lawyers including Charles Banner argues. They say the government would only have the “nuclear” option of withdrawing consent entirely — a bombshell move the British state is unlikely to take.

Human rights

The development could also be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, the association argues, warning it could “curtail the ability of concerned citizens to protest against alleged Chinese rights violations.” The application comes at a time protests against repression in China and Hong Kong are growing.

The residents argue a failure to disclose the security statement surrounding the site and the blast assessment — effectively how a bomb might impact the surroundings — was also unlawful. 

The Chinese embassy in London has not responded to a request for comment, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government declined to comment, citing the legal proceedings. But Reed has previously stressed his decision was made “fairly, based on evidence and planning rules.”

Luke de Pulford of the hawkish Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which is supporting the legal appeal, said: “Beijing managed to get their monstrous development to this point through blunt coercion and diplomatic pressure. 

“We are now going to discover if the mighty Chinese Communist Party is any match for U.K. planning law.”