Decision due on China’s proposed London embassy after years of wrangling

A decision on China’s proposed mega embassy in London is expected on Monday or Tuesday, with Chinese officials and British diplomats in Beijing awaiting whether the planning application will finally be approved. The saga has been running since 2018. China paid £255m for the Royal Mint Court site near the Tower of London to build a sprawling diplomatic complex, in a deal brokered by Eddie Lister when Boris Johnson was foreign secretary.

The plans originally ran into trouble after Tower Hamlets council refused planning permission and the application expired; The Guardian revealed that Johnson wrote to Wang Yi to assure him the embassy plans would be approved. Beijing has made the embassy issue a priority in the UK-China relationship and has for years blocked the UK’s plans to redevelop its dilapidated embassy in Beijing because of the London row.

Xi Jinping raised the matter with Keir Starmer in their first phone call in August 2024. Steve Tsang said the wrangling had "enabled Beijing to raise the embassy controversy to block whatever requests London has made that Beijing is not comfortable about," and Prof Kerry Brown said China "felt they had an understanding that they bought this £250m place to use as an embassy … if there were going to be issues, they could have been told then." The application is widely expected to be approved ahead of a 20 January deadline.

Key Topics

Politics, China, Royal Mint Court, Keir Starmer, Xi Jinping, Tower Hamlets Council