Why is Britain creating the conditions for Xi Jinping’s totalitarian state to spy on us?
Xi Jinping’s China is being invited to spy on Britain (Image: Getty)
The British Government’s apparent readiness to approve China’s proposed super-embassy at Royal Mint Court is not an act of diplomacy. It is foolish negligence. At a time when Ministers privately acknowledge that China poses a “systemic challenge” to UK national security, it is extraordinary that they appear willing to permit the largest Chinese embassy in Europe to be constructed directly beside some of Britain’s most sensitive communications infrastructure.
The unredacted plans show that the embassy would contain an underground network of 208 rooms, including a concealed chamber running immediately alongside fibre-optic cables carrying financial data for the City of London, communications for Canary Wharf, and internet traffic for millions of citizens. The question is not whether such a facility could be used for espionage. It is why we would knowingly create the conditions in which it will be.
China’s history of espionage is not speculative or ideological. MI5 has warned Parliament, civil servants, economists and think-tank staff that they are being actively targeted by Chinese intelligence.
British communication networks have already been compromised in global cyber-espionage campaigns attributed to Beijing and it would be ignorant of history to suppose that attacks like those where the AI assistant ‘Claude’ was retooled by hackers in November last year are anything other than experiments for a greater, more damaging strategy that consolidates long term influence.
Cognisant of this, the notion that physical proximity to critical data cables is a trivial concern borders on the absurd. Modern espionage is not limited to tapping wires. It is about interdicting information; monitoring flows, degrading trust, exploiting vulnerabilities and positioning oneself to manipulate or disrupt at opportune moments of tension.
Nor should we forget the broader pattern of Chinese behaviour. Beijing does not separate commerce, diplomacy and intelligence in the way liberal democracies do. Embassies are not merely diplomatic outposts; they are operational hubs for influence, surveillance and pressure – including against dissidents living in the UK.
Indeed, Hong Kong activists, Tibetan campaigners and critics of the Communist Party have already reported harassment and tailing on British soil. And we have had the saga of Confucius Institutes monitoring Chinese students on campuses and unofficial Chinese regime “police stations” to keep tabs on those who Beijing consider undesirable.
To approve this embassy now would send very dangerous signals. That Britain understands the threat, yet is unwilling to act upon it. That economic convenience trumps national security. That warnings from our own intelligence agencies can be overridden for the sake of avoiding causing offence.
There is no obligation to grant a hostile state a bespoke facility embedded in the nervous system of our national infrastructure. Britain can engage with China without inviting it into the wiring room of our economy and democracy.
If this embassy proceeds, it will not be remembered as a planning decision. It will be testimony to the failure of British statecraft.
