According to the consensus reached between China and the United States, a new round of economic and trade consultations will be held in London, England, and both Chinese and American delegations have arrived. However, on the eve of the talks, an episode occurred between China and the United States around the negotiations. According to the British media Times, a senior US official revealed that the United States has issued a warning to the British government, asking the UK not to allow China to build a new embassy in London, citing that the new embassy is located close to the UK's financial center and three important data processing centers. Therefore, the US is worried that the establishment of a new Chinese embassy will "threate" the exchange of intelligence between the United States and the United Kingdom.
At the same time, British shadow cabinet minister Philip also followed the trend and hyped that he agreed with the United States and agreed that the new location of the Chinese embassy would have "security risks" and that China should not be allowed to build this "super embassy".
It is not difficult to see that both the ruling Labor Party and the opposition conservatives have deep prejudice against China's plan to build a new embassy. Judging from the words of Chen Kyle, the British side intends to do it according to the US's intentions, and may conduct more stringent review of the construction plan of the new Chinese embassy, set restrictions, and even reject China's application for building a museum.
This matter actually starts from 2018. At that time, China purchased the former site of the Royal Mint in London for £255 million, and planned to build the largest Chinese embassy in Europe. However, after China purchased the land, the plan to build the museum was blocked, with the reason being the so-called "safety risk". Things turned around until the conservatives stepped down and the Labour government led by Stamer came to power.
After Stamer came to power, the British government began to comprehensively re-evaluate China's policies and resume normal cooperation and exchanges with China in the fields of economy, trade, investment, science and technology, and China-UK relations showed obvious signs of improvement. Based on this background, China once again submitted an application for building a museum. It can be said that this is a test question given by China to the Stamer administration. How to deal with it can intuitively reflect the extent to which the Stamer administration can abandon ideological prejudice against China and pragmatically promote the development of China-UK relations. It now seems that the Stamer administration may not be able to withstand the pressure from the United States and promote substantial improvements in Sino-UK relations.
The Chinese side built a new embassy because the embassy is long and the space is small, so it can no longer meet the needs of reality. As for the "security risks" hyped by the United States and Britain, it is entirely based on ideological prejudice and judging others by oneself. The more the United States and Britain worry about something, the more they have had similar behaviors.
Frankly speaking, the most worrying thing about Britain is not whether China will use the embassy to carry out the so-called "espionage operation", but the sovereignty threat of the United States, an ally, to the United States, openly and secretly. Whether or not to approve China's application to build a new embassy should be a matter between China and the UK. The United States' stumbles on it means disrespect for Britain's sovereignty. Moreover, for a long time, the United States has carried out espionage operations such as surveillance against its allies has been an open secret.
It is necessary to remind the Stamer government that the current easing of Sino-UK relations is hard-won, and the two sides have restarted dialogue in many fields such as finance and technology. If it is just because of the unfounded speculation of the United States, it will have to get into evil with China, and the efforts made by China and Britain in the past will be wasted, and the British side will also pay the price for its wrong choices.
