Both British and U.S. politicians have warned against allowing the Chinese regime to build its embassy on the site over fears that it could be used for spying.
The British government on Aug. 22 pushed its deadline to October to decide whether to approve construction of the Chinese communist regime’s embassy in London, following Beijing’s refusal to fully articulate why the plans include blacked-out areas.
Over the past three years, the regime’s attempt to build its largest embassy in Europe on the location of a two-century-old building close to the Tower of London has stalled due to opposition from lawmakers, local residents, and pro-democracy Hong Kong campaigners in the United Kingdom.
Both British and U.S. politicians have warned against allowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to build the embassy on the site over fears that it could be utilized as a spy base.
The Chinese regime’s DP9 planning consultancy group said its client considered it inappropriate to offer full internal layout plans, claiming additional drawings provided an appropriate level of detail, after the British government asked why multiple areas were blacked out in the 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 British government. “In these circumstances, we consider it is neither necessary nor appropriate to provide additional more detailed internal layout plans or details.”
In response, the British government’s Department of Housing said it would proceed to ruling on whether the project can continue by Oct. 21 instead of by Sept. 9 because it required additional time to review the responses.
“These explanations are far from satisfactory,” said Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an organization associated with an international network of politicians critical of the Chinese regime, which revealed the DP9 letter.
A long-time critic of China’s plans for the embassy, de Pulford said the “assurances amount to ’trust me bro.’”
The Chinese embassy said earlier this month that accusations that the building could contain “secret facilities” utilized to breach the United Kingdom’s national security were “despicable slandering.”
By Jacob Burg
