Hundreds of people on Saturday rallied in London against Beijing’s controversial new “mega” embassy – days after the Daily Telegraph revealed that Chinese officials plan to construct secret underground chambers right next to some of Britain’s most sensitive communications infrastructure.
British politician Kemi Badenoch, a leader of the Conservative Party, took to the mic to excoriate Labour over the plans:
“For those of you who don’t know, I grew up under a dictatorship,” she said. “I know what it is like to live under a Government that you are terrified of. I know what it is like to be afraid of what will happen to you if you speak out.
“China is a country that has harassed and sanctioned our MPs like Iain. China is a country that has harassed and abused British nationals connected to China. It helps our enemies, like Russia. It keeps slaves. It disrupts the global trade system.”
“And what worries me is that we have a Government right now that seems to be scared of China. We have a Government that is afraid, too weak, no backbone.“
🔴 Watch: Badenoch excoriates Labour over Chinese super-embassyhttps://t.co/Xf1Cfurq2a pic.twitter.com/Se23eeUisx
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) January 17, 2026
Meanwhile, former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith compared China to Nazi Germany, saying at the protest: “As we come forward now and watch the government trying to give away so much of what we believe in to an overarching, overweening, powerful dictatorship in China, we must remember that we have faced this before in the United Kingdom.
“We have faced it in the 1930s and 40s, when we made big mistakes in not recognising that a totalitarian state had its mind to overtake and overcome this marvellous democracy with its freedoms enshrined in law.
“Well, they failed then and almost too late. Did we realise that and stand against them? This embassy isn’t just about an embassy. This embassy is a token of what we believe in. It will be a blister on the face of freedom in the United Kingdom and all that we stand for.”
I believe the Government is acting recklessly in moving towards approving the new Chinese mega-embassy. I think this will prove to be a major failure and, frankly, a disaster for the UK. It would place an even larger Chinese presence right in the heart of London. China already…
— Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green (@MPIainDS) January 17, 2026
Plans for the embassy are expected to move forward if PM Keir Starmer approves them next week, however a residents’ group has vowed to bring legal action.
As we noted last week via the Telegraph; The chamber forms part of an extensive subterranean complex comprising 208 rooms beneath the embassy site at the former Royal Mint.
The drawings show that a single concealed chamber will sit directly alongside fibre-optic cables transmitting financial data to the City of London, as well as email and messaging traffic for millions of internet users.
The same hidden room is fitted with hot-air extraction systems, possibly suggesting the installation of heat-generating equipment such as advanced computers used for espionage. The plans also show that China intends to demolish and rebuild the outer basement wall of the chamber, directly beside the fibre-optic cables.
The revelations have prompted sharp criticism from senior UK Conservative figures, including Alicia Kearns, the shadow national security minister, who described approving the plans as providing “a launchpad for economic warfare at the heart of the central nervous system of our critical national infrastructure”.
“The unredacted plans reveal a concealed room running immediately alongside the fibre-optic cables critical to the City and Canary Wharf. Telegraph readers don’t need me to spell out the obvious threats posed, nor China’s subterfuge – so why does the Labour Government?” Ms. Kearns told the newspaper.
The Telegraph further reports on why the proximity to the cables is cause for national security concerns:
Carrying signals bearing the innermost financial secrets of the British economy, the cables stretch between the Telehouse group of data centres in Docklands and other centres around the capital. Linked together, these form the core of the London Internet Exchange (Linx). Beyond London, they connect to Atlantic cables linking to the US.
Linx is one of the biggest internet exchange points in the world, handling vast volumes of data spanning everything from financial transactions to instant messages and emails.Its cables carry the financial transaction data relied upon by banks to update withdrawals and deposits, such as ordinary people’s salary packets and payments for goods bought online.
Professor Alan Woodward, a security expert at the University of Surrey, told The Telegraph that China’s plans pose a “red flag.”
“There’s a long history of cable-tapping by East and West alike. Anyone who can do it has done it,” Woodward said. “Espionage isn’t just about state secrets. Economic intelligence is central to the mission of foreign intelligence services.”
“If I were in their shoes, having those cables on my doorstep would be an enormous temptation,” he added.
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