CHINA has blasted Britain over fresh delays to its controversial London “super embassy” – warning Sir Keir Starmer he faces “consequences” if the project is not approved soon.
In an extraordinary outburst, Beijing accused the UK of “acting in bad faith and without integrity” after ministers pushed back a decision on the site until December.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said China expressed “grave concern and strong dissatisfaction” at the delay, adding the UK must “immediately fulfill its obligations and honour its commitments, otherwise the British side shall bear all consequences”
The furious statement came right as ministers yesterday extended the deadline for the ruling – the second postponement in two months.
The row centres on China’s bid to turn the Royal Mint Court site, beside the Tower of London, into what would be the biggest embassy in Europe.
The plan has set off alarm bells across Whitehall, with security chiefs warning the site sits near key communications cables used by banks and government offices, making it a potential eavesdropping hub.
China has refused to hand over full internal blueprints, claiming it was “not appropriate” to disclose every room layout, further fuelling suspicion.
Ministers took the case out of Tower Hamlets Council’s hands after it was rejected in 2022.
China resubmitted an identical bid last year, but the government has twice kicked the decision down the road.- first under Angela Rayner, and now under Housing Secretary Steve Reed.
Officials insist the delay is due to “detailed representations” from the Home Office and Foreign Office, but critics believe it is because Labour is afraid to anger Beijing.
The diplomatic clash comes amid mounting tensions over Chinese espionage – just weeks after prosecutors dramatically dropped a high-profile spy case against two British men.
Parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash, 30, and academic Christopher Berry, 33, had been accused of spying for Beijing, but the Crown Prosecution Service abandoned the case last month.
Both men denied the allegations.
The collapse of the case stunned Westminster and has raised fresh questions over the scale of China’s reach inside Britain.
It also came as MI5 chief Sir Ken McCallum warned that Chinese state actors pose a threat to the UK “every day”, urging ministers to stay alert to Beijing’s influence operations.
Boris Johnson‘s former top adviser Dominic Cummings also claimed intelligence chiefs warned him that China was “trying to build a spy centre underneath the embassy.”
He told ITV’s Talking Politics podcast: “MI5 and MI6 said to me explicitly: China is trying to build a spy centre underneath the embassy.
“It’s an extremely bad idea to allow this to go ahead. It’s particularly a bad idea given the exact location and various cables which run underneath London.
“Please will you help us try to persuade the prime minister to kibosh this dreadful idea because other powerful parts of Whitehall don’t want to have a row with China about it, particularly the Treasury.”
He said they discussed it with Mr Johnson, “but of course, as always with these things, right, it rumbles on year after year after year”.
Shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly called for the planning review to have access to “full unredacted drawings” for the plans.
He said Sir Keir should follow the lead of Ireland and Australia when faced with similar proposals from Russia and ensure his government throws out the “sinister application”.
The Liberal Democrats accused the Government of “kicking the can down the road”.
Calum Miller, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman, said: “It’s beyond time this embassy proposal was put out of its misery – and that the Government send a signal to China that we will no longer roll over in the face of their industrial espionage.”
