The previous Tory government may not have been very successful in containing the global ambitions of China, but at least it tried. Whether David Lammy’s Foreign Office has the same ambition to stand up to Beijing’s bullying is unfortunately becoming more doubtful. A straw in the wind is the announcement by China this week that it has revived plans to build a spanking new ‘super embassy’ – ten times the size of Beijing’s current outpost – on land it owns in the heart of the capital, a stone’s throw from the Tower of London.

This isn’t any old exercise in replacement of one piece of real estate with another. What China wants to build is a massive campus covering about 5.4 acres of prime City land just across the road from the old St Katharine Docks. Its slightly sinister-looking concrete cuboids would dwarf the old Royal Mint building partly designed by Robert Smirke; if constructed the complex would form the largest diplomatic compound in the UK.

A number of features of this plan ought to give the government and the Foreign Office pause. One problem is its physical effect on London. Hiving off a sizeable part of London’s growing commercial district to high-profile embassy use seems short-sighted. More........

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