cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/4176333

The British government on Friday extended the deadline until October to decide on whether to approve China’s plans to build the largest embassy in Europe in London after Beijing refused to fully explain why the plans contained blacked out areas.

China’s plans to build a new embassy on the site of a two-century-old building near the Tower of London have stalled for the past three years because of opposition from local residents, lawmakers, and Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners in Britain.

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DP9, the planning consultancy working for the Chinese government, said its client felt it would be inappropriate to provide full internal layout plans, saying additional drawings provided an acceptable level of detail, after the government asked why several areas were blacked out in drawings.

“The Applicant considers the level of detail shown on the unredacted plans is sufficient to identify the main uses,” DP9 said in a letter to the government.

“In these circumstances, we consider it is neither necessary nor appropriate to provide additional more detailed internal layout plans or details.”

The British government’s department of housing said in reply it would now rule on whether the project can go ahead by October 21 rather than by September 9 because it needed more time to consider the responses.

Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group with ties to an international network of politicians critical of China which revealed the letter, said: “These explanations are far from satisfactory.”

De Pulford, a long-standing critic of plans for the embassy, said the “assurances amount to ‘trust me bro’”.

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The Chinese government has been seeking to turn the former Royal Mint in London and into a new mega-embassy in London, replacing the far smaller premises it has occupied since 1877. But the move has sparked concerns China would use this the ‘mega-embassy’ covering some 20,000 square metres as an Chinese espionage hub.

Carmen Lau, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist who fled to the UK and is now one of dozens id exiled dissidents for whom Beijing offered bounties, argues that the UK should not allow China’s “authoritarian regime” to have its new embassy in such a symbolic location. One of her fears is that China, with such a huge embassy, could harass political opponents and could even hold them in the building.

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