Chairman of residents' association campaigns to stop China building embassy on ... trends now

When Dave Lake watched as a Hong Kong dissident was dragged into the Chinese consulate in Manchester and beaten by officials — in full view of police — he realised the enormity of what he had taken on.

As chairman of a small residents’ association, the 68-year-old retired engineer was spearheading a campaign to stop the People’s Republic of China building a massive and intimidating embassy on his doorstep. 

But he hadn’t realised the stakes would be so high.

‘I bumped into a friend in the street after that and he said, “Watch out for people coming towards you with umbrellas”,’ says Dave. 

‘I think he was joking. At least, I hope he was.’

The warning actually related not to China, but the assassination by the Russian KGB and Bulgarian secret service of the anti-communist dissident Georgi Markov, who died in London in 1978 after being injected with ricin thought to have come from the tip of an umbrella. 

But the reference wasn’t lost on Dave. ‘I’m not saying I’m having sleepless nights, but comments like that do make you think,’ he says. 

‘And when I watched the Chinese consular staff beating up that dissident in front of the police, it was worrying. They think they’re above the law.’

The proposed development being opposed by Dave’s Royal Mint Court Residents’ Association is for a £750 million embassy on the 5.5-acre site of the former Royal Mint, opposite the Tower of London. 

Coins were minted there for 160 years, until 1967. It was sold by the Crown Estate in the late 1980s and acquired by property firm Delancey — owned by Tory donor Jamie Ritblat — in 2010 until its purchase by China in 2018 for £255 million.

Plans for the site — also home to a Black Death burial plot — drawn up by architect David Chipperfield involve demolishing sections of the Grade II-listed building, renovating some of the structures and building housing for more than 250 embassy staff. 

If completed, it would be one-third bigger than the new American embassy opened in London in 2018, making it the largest in western Europe.

Dave and his fellow campaigners scored a major but potentially short-lived victory this month when Tower Hamlets borough councillors unanimously rejected the plans at an impassioned planning meeting that went on into the night.

The decision was unexpected as council officials had recommended the application be approved, but moving speeches from residents, councillors, Hong Kong expatriates and supporters of Uyghur muslims, who are being rounded up and ‘re-educated’ in Chinese prison camps, won the day.

Councillor Peter Golds said the victory, so far, was a ‘triumph for local democracy’ and said he believed the Chinese plans were ‘all about prestige’. ‘Every person coming out of the Tube, looking to see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, would turn left and see the flag of the Chinese Communist Party flying,’ he says.

‘It would look ridiculous. Can you imagine President Macron permitting this next to the Arc de Triomphe or Eiffel Tower? It’s like flying the flag of the Chinese Communist Party on the site of the Vatican.’

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has six weeks to decide whether to endorse Tower Hamlets’ decision or overturn the rejection, which was made on the grounds of residents’ safety and the prospect of demonstrations outside the embassy causing traffic chaos. 

It could also be ‘called in’ by housing minister Michael Gove, who has the power to make a final decision.

The timing couldn’t be worse, with diplomatic relations between China and the UK at an all-time low, but the Royal Mint Court Residents’ Association is already preparing for the next stage of their fight.

‘We didn’t celebrate,’ says Dave. ‘The first thing we did was to set up a project on crowdfunder.co.uk to raise £8,000 for legal representation. We think we’re going to need it.’

The 100 or so residents objecting to the plans live in St Mary Graces Court on Cartwright Street, which backs on to the site of the Mint. 

According to Dave, this makes them ‘human shields’ for the embassy. 

‘There are so many groups who oppose what the Chinese are doing to the Uyghurs and the oppression in Tibet and Hong Kong that we feel it isn’t a matter of if the embassy will face some kind of terrorist attack, but when,’ he says.

‘We asked Tower Hamlets to conduct a bomb threat evaluation to assess the impact of an explosion on our homes. One was carried out, but we were told by the police that the results were “sensitive” so we haven’t been allowed to see them.’

I asked Tower Hamlets, the Metropolitan Police and Arup, the design and engineering consultants thought to have conducted the assessment, what the findings said about residents’ safety. 

The police and Arup declined to comment. The council did not reply.

St Mary Graces Court estate was opened by the Queen in 1989. It featured affordable, part-owned properties intended for key workers and was built on Crown Estate land, with the Crown being the freeholder.

However, with the sale to China, residents found the freehold had been sold, too — giving the Chinese unfettered access to their homes.

‘There is a clause in the lease that gives the freeholder the right of entrance in case a leaseholder is doing something that causes the freeholder concern,’ says Dave. 

‘That was alright when our freeholder was the Crown. But what if someone wanted to put up a poster in support of the Uyghurs or a free Tibet?

‘Would they have a bunch of Chinese officials bursting into their home and pulling it down? Will they have us under surveillance, listening to our phone calls and watching what we’re doing on the internet? It’s really rather frightening.’

Dave is so concerned that he’s written to King Charles to ask him to negotiate a return of the freehold to the Crown Estates. He’s

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