Leaked blueprints raise security concerns over China’s proposed Royal Mint embassy

According to Independent.co, the government is expected in the coming days to give the green light for Beijing to develop the former Royal Mint site near the Tower of London as a new ‘‘super-embassy’’. Full, unredacted blueprints published in the article show a 22,000 square-metre complex with a basement containing 208 unmarked rooms and an exterior basement wall running less than two metres from fibre‑optic cables that carry highly sensitive financial data.

The plans also include large cooling systems that the piece says imply data servers could be installed; the article cites Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosures about GCHQ’s capacity to tap transatlantic cables to underline how cable hacking can be feasible. The author notes China bought the freehold for Royal Mint Court in May 2018 for £255m and that an initial planning request was rejected by the local council but was resubmitted in August 2024 after the election of a Labour government.

No 10 has said neither MI5 nor MI6 objects to the project, though the article’s author, Professor Anthony Glees, argues security issues cannot be managed and points to the collapse last October of the trial of two suspected Chinese spies as evidence of prosecutorial difficulty.

Key Topics

Politics, Royal Mint Court, Fibre Optic Cables, China, Keir Starmer