Contentious proposals for a new Chinese mega-embassy in central London have been the subject of geopolitical wrangling at the highest levels of government, but another party is also demanding to be heard: a band of local residents.
When the Beijing administration bought the site of the old Royal Mint next to the Tower of London in 2018, its aim was to build the largest Chinese diplomatic complex in Europe.
Alongside resplendent Georgian architecture and the ruins of a 14th century Cistercian abbey, the 5.4 acre purchase also included the freehold to about 100 flats across four residential blocks.
Many of the residents now living on the Chinese-government owned land oppose the proposed embassy complex, but feel their voices have been ignored as the superpower has ratcheted up pressure on the UK government to assist its application for planning permission.
“We’re definitely pawns in a wider geopolitical game,” says Mark Nygate, 64, a management accountant who is a vocal critic of the plan and a leading member of the Royal Mint Court Residents Association.
After early victories in the long-running battle, including a decision by Tower Hamlets council to block the Chinese state’s first planning application on security grounds in 2022, Nygate and his neighbours are now entering their final skirmish — and are nervous about their prospects.
Their latest crowdfunder for what they call their “David vs Goliath” fight has raised only £370 of its £30,000 target to pay for legal advice for a public inquiry into the proposals, which is due to take evidence and conduct site inspections this month.
Nygate’s ground-floor flat, where he has lived for 27 years, is the closest to the perimeter of the proposed embassy complex, just 8.5 metres from a wooden fence that marks the rear boundary of the diplomatic site.
While much of the rest of the site is protected by fortress-like walls, the Chinese government plans to have only a fence here, sparking anxiety among Nygate and other neighbours that the spot next to their homes would be vulnerable to potential assault.
Violent terror attacks, disruptive protests and traffic disturbance are among the potential threats to local safety and quality of life if construction of the Chinese embassy goes ahead, according to a damning report by security group Crilly Consulting commissioned by worried residents.
Some spoke to the Financial Times only on the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals from their freeholder — the Chinese government. Others in nearby streets are also resistant to the plan, but declined to speak publicly because they have links to companies ultimately owned by Chinese enterprises.
One of the people living in Royal Mint Court said they suspected Beijing’s ultimate aim was to “get us out” of the properties, flatten the residential blocks and then build superior fortifications.
In 2020 the Chinese consulate in Belfast built a new boundary wall without planning permission. When the city council sought a court injunction, the Chinese consulate successfully argued that diplomatic immunity meant the court did not have jurisdiction over the land.
The uncertainty hanging over the London site has harmed the value and saleability of the flats, Nygate argues, as he describes the toll the battle has taken on him and some of his neighbours.
“Its certainly been very stressful. You don’t know whether you’ll be living here in a few years’ time . . . The pressure is having an impact on work and maybe, in some ways, my mental state as well,” he says.
His other concerns span potential surveillance of the area by the Chinese state and curbs on activities taking place there. He is a keen photographer who enjoys taking pictures of beans growing in his vegetable patch, which abuts the perimeter of the proposed embassy. He worries that wielding a camera near the sensitive site could prompt confrontations with embassy security guards.
Another resident expressed their anger towards the UK government for riding roughshod over the objections of local people about the proposals. “I’m appalled. The ministers, the [UK] government, have a duty to British citizens first, then the duty under the [Vienna] agreement” — a convention that obliges a state to help other nations carry out their diplomatic work on its territory.
In recent months several British cabinet ministers appear to have lined up behind China’s latest planning application, which was submitted last summer.
Housing secretary Angela Rayner announced she would be taking control of the decision just days before foreign secretary David Lammy flew out to Beijing to step up engagement with the Chinese government last October. It then emerged that British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chinese President Xi Jinping have discussed the embassy.
In the most recent intervention, Lammy and home secretary Yvette Cooper last month signalled their support for the application — albeit with conditions.
They revealed in a letter to the planning inspectorate that the Metropolitan Police had “withdrawn their objection” to the plans. Nygate and other residents say they believe the police have been “nobbled”.
Last November Jon Savell, the Metropolitan police’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Specialist Operations, raised a range of issues about the planning proposals and said the “vulnerability of the residents” in the apartment blocks “should not be discounted”.
In January, however, Elisabeth Chapple, the Met’s Deputy Senior National Co-ordinator of the Protect and Prepare programme, told the Planning Inspectorate that the Met had since taken into account another formal assessment of the site, which had led the police to withdraw its objection to the planning application.
A Met spokesperson said the force’s initial objection related to the “potential impact of protests on local roads”, adding: “The borough council has since reintroduced an assessment of the surrounding area’s ability to accommodate protests — this was not available at the point our objection was made.”
It has not gone unnoticed that the UK government is also seeking permission from the Chinese authorities to reconstruct its own embassy in Beijing, which some critics believe may be playing into Whitehall’s considerations about the Royal Mint site.
There are differing views among local residents about the embassy, however. While Nygate and allies insist they represent the “vast majority”, their neighbour Barry Harris is more relaxed about the proposal.
The retired surveyor, 71, who has lived on the site for 25 years, dismisses “scaremongering” about the plans.
Taking an upbeat view of the Beijing administration’s proposal, he says: “I think it will raise the area to have the embassy there . . . less graffiti, less drug taking, less disturbance in the area, because they [Chinese officials] will be there overseeing everything.”
He adds that the site has “sat empty for years, which is a crying shame, it needs to be used for something”.
In any case, Harris has long viewed it as inevitable that China will get permission for its plans, going “over the head of the local council”.
Tower Hamlets council refused the latest planning application in December, but acknowledged the matter was now in Rayner’s hands.
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said a final decision “will be made in due course”.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said it had engaged a security consultant at an early stage of its “high quality” project and that its planning application “has taken into full consideration the UK’s planning policy and guidance as well as views of all relevant parties”.
On Wednesday, Foreign Office minister Baroness Jenny Chapman told parliament it was “very important that any conditions that might be imposed are complied with” by Beijing regarding the embassy proposal.
She acknowledged that it would be “a very large embassy” if it went ahead, but added: “China is a considerably large country with considerable interests.”
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