LONDON, Jan 19 (KUNA) -- The UK government approved on Tuesday a "huge" Chinese Embassy in central London amid controversy and objection by political leaders and intelligence services.
Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government, Steve Reed signed the agreement for the 20,000-sqm embassy, which will be situated next to the Tower of London.
He said that the decision is "now final unless it is successfully challenged in court." The government said, it had worked "with policing, and other relevant partners, to ensure that the breadth of national security issues associated with the planning application have been considered and addressed." Among critics, Conservative shadow security minister, Alicia Kearns, who was cited by Sky News as saying, the embassy's clear approval was "inevitable since Starmer promised to assist Xi Jinping in a phone call in August 2024," adding, "Will the Chinese pay for critical cabling to be moved? Will there be any monitoring of the site against transnational repression and hacking?" Director of MI5, Ken McCallum wrote in a letter addressed to the Home and Foreign Secretaries, "It would be irrational to drive 'embassy generated risk' down to zero when numerous other threat vectors are so central to the national security risks we face in the present era." The site of the embassy was bought by China in 2018 for GBP 225 million and the decision to approving it took a while to go through various security implications. (end) gta.hb