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Surrounded by many police officers, the demonstrators held signs that read “The Chinese Communist Party is monitoring you, stop the construction of the giant embassy” and “Freedom of speech.”
Agence France-Presse said that for many years, China has been interested in building the largest Chinese embassy in Europe in London. The Chinese Embassy in the UK is currently located in Portland Place in central London. China first announced plans to build a new embassy in London in 2018 as it seeks to maintain its growing diplomatic influence. Beijing has spent around £250m to buy the former site of the 14th-century Royal Mint Court, which it hopes to redevelop.
If the new embassy is completed, it will become China’s largest embassy in Europe, almost twice the size of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. But the plan for a new Chinese embassy in the UK has sparked strong opposition from local residents, human rights activists and other critics of Beijing.
Former British Security Secretary Tom Tugendhat said, “This is about our future freedom, not just about the relocation of the Chinese embassy in London.” He is worried that “economic espionage will increase” against the UK and that “Chinese dissidents will be more suppressed.”
The protesters, who included Hong Kongers, Tibetans, Uighurs and Chinese dissidents, wanted to show that the location was “inappropriate as there was no space in front of the building for the expression of a peaceful demonstration,” according to a statement issued ahead of the rally by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a human rights group and transnational group of European elected officials.
According to documents published on the website of Tower Hamlets Council in London, in July 2024, Beijing submitted a new planning application to Tower Hamlets Council to build a new embassy near the Tower of London. The Labour Government came to power on July 5. The application was submitted shortly after the Labour government was formed.
Planning application documents say Tower Hamlets Borough Council’s decision in December 2022 to refuse the building application, citing safety reasons and the impact on residents, was “without basis” and “lacked planning policy rationale”.
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