Is China's mega-embassy a mega-spy base?
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
China is on the cusp of constructing the biggest embassy in Europe– right in central London– despite a growing chorus of concern it could be used for a number of spying operations. So why is Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer expected to approve the project? And how worried should we really be?
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Guests:
- Cindy Yu, columnist and contributing editor, The Times and The Sunday Times.
- Geraldine Scott, assistant political editor, The Times.
Host: Luke Jones.
Producer: Micaela Arneson.
Read more:
Further listening: Will 2026 be the year of China?
Clips: The Mirror, Daily Express, Sky News, Channel 4.
Photo: Getty Images.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is The Story. |
| 0:06.7 | I'm Luke Jones. |
| 0:09.8 | And I am out and about looking at a small-ish piece of land that could soon be China. |
| 0:17.1 | I'm not in China. |
| 0:18.3 | I know that I'm in London because I'm absolutely wet through with thick drizzle. |
| 0:22.6 | I can see just behind me the Tower of London. I passed Tower Bridge earlier. There's a |
| 0:26.6 | smattering of vape shops, all the London sites. And this is the old Royal Mint Building, |
| 0:32.6 | a big old Palladian looking thing with some colonnades, a little court and that offence peering into it. |
| 0:39.3 | But this is what the Chinese government want to be their new embassy in the UK, a mega embassy. |
| 0:45.3 | There have been concerns and objections from Conservative MPs, Labour backbenchers, the US government even, |
| 0:52.3 | who fear that this will be a spying base for the Chinese government. |
| 0:58.1 | But this week, the Prime Minister is expected to give the project the green light. |
| 1:05.3 | Should we be worried? |
| 1:06.8 | Is this an expanding bricks and mortar security threat right in the heart of London? |
| 1:15.6 | Can a story be both dramatic and about planning permission? We will find out. The story today is China's mega embassy, just a mega spy base. |
| 1:33.1 | My name is Cindy Yu. I'm a columnist for The Times and Sunday Times, and I often write about China. |
| 1:50.8 | My name is Jerry Scott. I'm the assistant political editor at the Times, which means I cover everything from Westminster gossip to big geopolitical events like the thing we're discussing today. |
| 2:02.8 | Yes, which at its heart is a planning decision. |
| 2:06.0 | But explain first of all what is being proposed. |
| 2:09.4 | This has been described as a mega embassy. |
| 2:11.2 | How mega are we talking? |
| 2:13.6 | So this is mega in terms of both its size, the scale and it's important. |
... |
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