00:00the british government has given approval for china to build a huge new embassy in central
00:05london subject to some conditions the decision had been delayed twice over national security
00:10concerns the site is near london's financial district and some politicians fear it could
00:15be used as a base for spying the approval was announced before an expected visit to china by
00:20prime minister kia starmer in the last hour the head of britain security service mi5 has said
00:25it's not realistic to expect to be able to eliminate each and every potential risk linked
00:30to the new embassy well our political correspondent damien grammaticus has this update the indications
00:36had been despite all of the arguments and the controversy around this plan uh the indications
00:42had been that the government was minded to approve it and the biggest signal we got of that was late
00:47last year when downing street uh kind of indicated that the security services had the uk security
00:55service had looked at this plan and had not raised any objections and that was crucial
00:59because the a lot of the objections revolve around the positioning right next to the tower of london
01:06a very sort of prominent site this huge building that once housed the royal mint where the national
01:11currency was made but also that site is right next to routes that carry underground data cables for the
01:18city of london there was a concern about china being able to access those from the premises what we've
01:24got now the planning decision from the uh housing secretary steve reed so who in his job as housing
01:32secretary the government brought this decision in house they took it away from the local council who'd
01:36already rejected it once and the decision we've just had is that the uh government is approving
01:43this plan to go ahead for this what's been called mega embassy uh subject it says to some conditions i've
01:51just been looking through trying to read those conditions i haven't got through to all of them
01:54but some of them relate to some of the concerns that have been raised uh that this site it's a this
02:00very prominent site is right opposite the tower of london it's a very busy tourist part of london
02:05and local residents whose houses actually would form part of the site and adjacent to it
02:12have been very worried about the fact that it will be it will protests will happen in the area
02:17those who are opposed to the chinese communist government and so groups like tibetans pro-democracy
02:24campaigners hong kongers in exile and that there will be large possible large demonstrations and
02:29security risks some of the conditions here are around how what would have to be done in the area
02:36in the kind of modeling landscaping of the area to deal with those protests and security risks that's
02:41part of the the uh what has been the conditions approved i haven't got to the other conditions yet but
02:47the important thing with all of this i think is that this is a very politically sensitive decision
02:52for the government here because of the opposition from the conservatives from the liberal democrats
02:57from reform uk from all of the opposition parties who said that this shouldn't go ahead because the
03:02security risks to china accessing underground cables the fact that it would give china uh such a huge
03:09prominent site in the heart of london and that this could become a base for spying operations and
03:15influence operations targeting chinese dissidents abroad the uk government's position had been that
03:21well it's better to have china all on one site uh all its diplomats and uh representing london
03:27operating from one site uh and that the security risks that appeared could be managed so it seems that
03:32the uh the housing secretary has looked at the results of there was a whole planning inquiry he's looked
03:38at the results of that he said he agrees with the planning inspector and he has approved this to go ahead
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