The so-called “city lament” was a staple of ancient verse. Often unnamed narrators dwelt on the vanquished glory and uncertain future of a fallen metropole. The Prophet Jeremiah’s scolding of the Israelites following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem is the most famous surviving example.
If revived today, a reflection on London’s waning fortunes would be an obvious start for the genre. The sale of a site of national – even royal – importance in our capital’s centre to the Chinese regime for a vast, secretive project would surely merit at least a few sour verses in any such elegy.
The plans, greenlit by the Government in January, would plonk the 52,000-plus-square-metre embassy of a hostile state at the heart of London’s financial powerhouse. The redacted plans show an underground complex just metres away from the country’s most sensitive communication cables, which could be spied on or interfered with by China. Former No 10 chief adviser Dominic Cummings has specifically said MI5 and MI6 warned him that Beijing had every intention of building an underground spy centre on the site.
Secrecy is often a feature, not a bug, of bilateral relationships, but the Chinese Communist Party is infamous both for its meddling and its hostility to its western rivals. That there are other embassies of unfriendly governments in London is rather beside the point. There are no plans to grant them extensive and strategically placed sites, at great risk to our national security.
Naturally, this particular scheme has provoked opposition from many corners, including the Royal Mint Court Residents’ Association (RMCRA). The group represents families and businesses in some 100 properties close to the proposed site opposite the Tower of London, and had advanced a legal challenge, alleging the espionage threat of the embassy, not to mention the risk of it being used to target dissidents. On July 31, the High Court rejected their complaint, ruling that the planning decision was lawful.
While the association is set to appeal this dismal verdict, it’s worrying that the Government approved the plans in the first place. It wouldn’t dream of approving such new premises for the Russian or Iranian embassies under current circumstances. Why are exceptions constantly made for China? Presumably because it is poised to be much wealthier and more powerful than both Tehran and Moscow put together as the century goes on, and Britain’s cowardly establishment would much rather piggyback on its advance than invest in our own long-term interests and prosperity.
China is evidently involved in espionage, theft and intimidation across our public and private sectors. Downing Street and the Foreign Office were reportedly hacked by alleged agents of Beijing. In 2022, men emerged from the Chinese consulate in Manchester and beat a peaceful protester inside the compound before he managed to escape. Chinese state-linked group APT31 targeted the email accounts of MPs and peers who had criticised Beijing, some of whom had literally been sanctioned by it. The Hong Kong police have repeatedly issued arrest warrants and rewards of up to HK$1 million against democracy campaigners living in Britain, including my former colleague Chloe Cheung.
None of these is shocking, given how the Chinese state operates on its own turf. There is no consistent freedom of expression, freedom of the press or right to a fair trial. Under-18s are often prohibited from having any formal religious affiliation or entering religious buildings. Independent churches are frequently shut down and clergy arrested. State-sanctioned churches are tightly monitored and restricted by the Government, and often forced to display communist regalia and images of President Xi Jinping. Religious materials are frequently censored or rewritten to better conform to “official” ideology.
Christians, or indeed any religious persons, are often blacklisted from lucrative jobs requiring Communist Party membership. Minority groups including Uyghur Muslims are shipped off to be “re-educated”, and have been subject to slave labour, forced abortion, sexual abuse and organ harvesting. Catholic pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai, a British citizen, has been behind bars for more than 2,000 days for displeasing the Chinese regime, as are many other peaceful dissidents, journalists and activists.
It adds insult to injury, then, that the Chinese embassy says it will include a free exhibit of the ruins of a 14th-century abbey sitting below the old Royal Mint building. How many Londoners, especially those whom the Chinese Government has already treated unfavourably, will actually be permitted to visit the ruins of that formerly grand Cistercian abbey?
Shakespeare’s fictionalised rendering of John of Gaunt, who was 10 years old when St Mary Graces Abbey was founded in 1350, feels poignant as we anticipate the fate both of this city and the Christian heritage a tyrannical power is holding hostage beneath it.
“That England, that was wont to conquer others / Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.”
