Urban renewal, economic prosperity and thousands of jobs? Perhaps not. The promises of the golden era of UK-China relations have left little more than a sour taste. Earlier this year, the debate over whether the Chinese should be allowed to turn the Royal Mint near Tower Bridge into a 600,000 sq ft Chinese super-embassy reached a climax, with weeks of headline-grabbing rows and commentary. But it also opened people’s eyes to another of China’s impacts on the capital. The embassy saga reflects how China’s relationship with London darkened, with wide-reaching impact on the capital’s landscape, reshaping it in often hidden ways, and leaving us with empty offices, ghost neighbourhoods and half-completed projects.
Eighteen years ago, Chinese money flowed into London, financing property, utilities and other projects. China’s influence on London’s arts and culture scene suggested that London was “Beijing on Thames”. Ai Weiwei’s installation was showing at Tate Modern in 2010 and fashion designers like Fan Jie strutted their stuff at London Fashion Week in 2009.
A property agent described this time to me as “a buying frenzy”. A time when “the Chinese were buying everything. And I mean everything,” he said. Whether buying existing buildings or developing new ones, iconic or landmark properties were favourite landing spots for Chinese money. Sites near London’s financial infrastructures around Canary Wharf and the Bank of England were especially attractive. They were marketed with promises of jobs and housing for Londoners. But as political tides turned, the money dried up, leaving London home to unfinished projects, unresolved issues and in one case, a ghost neighbourhood. So what happened, and can it be fixed?
The golden era: When Chinese money bought London
Between 2008 and 2016, the mood was optimistic. It was a high point in contemporary China-UK relations, as money flowed into London, eased by high-profile visits by city leaders and politicians. Following the financial crash of 2008, commercial property prices in London had become attractively low, drawing a surge of Chinese capital. This investment paid for some of the capital’s most notable buildings.
The “Walkie-Talkie”, which towers about 20 Fenchurch Street, was bought by a Hong Kong company in 2017. In 2014, a Shanghai developer, Greenland, bought a site near Docklands at Westferry to build an iconic 67-storey tower, The Spire. In 2013, Dalian Wanda, one of China’s biggest developers set about building a commercial-residential development at One Nine Elms near Vauxhall. In the same year, a Beijing-based developer — Advanced Business Parks (ABP) — embarked on extending London eastwards, proposing to add an Asian Business Park to consolidate and extend business with China. In this cause, ABP took over 35 acres of prime waterside along Gallions Reach opposite the London City Airport.
The ‘Walkie-Talkie’ builging was bought by a Hong Kong company in 2017
PA
No one knows how much Chinese money poured into London during the golden era because no one kept track of it or where it landed. Certainly not the Greater London Authority (GLA), although some commercial bodies tried to trace it. But it was boom time for deals between developers and local councils. A time of frenzied city building.
The buying and building mania in London was financed by the big Chinese banks, many of them state-owned. At this time, the Chinese Communist Party encouraged outward investment of capital it could not absorb at home. London’s cash-strapped councils, aided and abetted by government, surfed the wave of money surging through the capital. Visits between London and Beijing with handshakes and photocalls took the Conservative prime minister David Cameron, chancellor George Osborne and London mayor, Boris Johnson to Beijing in 2010, 2013 and 2015.
Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks to the media during a visit to Inmarsat on October 22, 2015 in London
Getty
Xi Jinping himself visited London in 2015. Johnson set up London & Partners with taxpayers’ money to “grow global London” through offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Whether any of this improved the lives of Londoners is a difficult question to answer. What is certain is that the capital has been left with losses in its balance sheets, and disappointment and embarrassment for the city officials who eagerly anticipated the benefits of Chinese investment.
From megaprojects to ghost neighbourhoods
The debris of the golden era is holes in the ground, holes in the landscape, and scaled-back projects that need to find new developers, deals and purposes. In place of much-needed housing, “Coming Soon” signs are still plastered across billboards covering construction sites across the city. These come with computer-generated images of neighbourhoods that look good to live in. Mirages of city life.
On the geopolitical and diplomatic front, warm and smiley diplomatic visits between London and Beijing all but stopped. For 10 years ago, just as the UK voted to leave the European Union, Chinese investment in building began to collapse. No longer a portal to the EU, the UK became a less attractive place to store and grow Chinese capital. The exodus left unfinished developments, many of which are still empty today.
The most notable example of the trouble brewing is One Nine Elms, heralded as a masterpiece of London’s boom years. The reality is somewhat different. Construction workers building the £900 million skyscrapers left in 2022, when they were not paid by Guangzhou R&F, leaving the 58- and 43-storey buildings unfinished. R&F had bought this site from the Dalian Wanda group when it too hit a liquidity crisis. The towers have now eventually been completed after the development was sold yet again to Cheung Chung-kiu, chairman of Hong Kong-based CC Land.
The Chinese retreat from London property continued at pace
The Chinese retreat from London property continued at pace. Big investors like China Vanke Co and Fosun International Holdings both sold their London office properties between 2017 and 2022. In 2023, Shimao Group Holdings Ltd — a company close to the Chinese state whose secrecy intrigued UK financial journalists — sold its prized office building once occupied by Goldman Sachs.
Landmark building The Spire, which was set be the tallest residential building in Western Europe, is still, after more than a decade, nothing more than a hole in the ground covered by hoardings that boast images promising a spectacular building. Greenland, one of China’s largest residential developers, is in dispute with Tower Hamlets council over whether the development can meet Greenland’s profit margins and the council’s fire safety requirements. Waiting for deals to be agreed that are invisible to Londoners slows construction. These are not the only stalled projects.
Construction at Royal Albert Dock stopped in 2019, when ABP failed to pay its creditors. It had built 56,000 square feet of empty office, retail and residential space, in three rows of handsome six-storey brick buildings. But in 2022, Sadiq Khan tore up the £1bn agreement with the development company, after what critics described as a “wasted decade”. Finished outside but not inside, the buildings, which were meant to be a key component of a major regeneration project, creating 20,000 jobs and adding £6bn to the UK economy, remain silent and unused. Outside on Mandarin Street, nothing happens. No one visits because this is not a destination. ABP has built London a beautiful ghost neighbourhood.
Royal Albert Dock
Paul K Porter
Next to this empty neighbourhood is a giant hole in the landscape stretching along the waterside all the way to the University of East London. The hole was to be phase two of the project. But ABP didn’t even break ground. Analysts at Bloomberg estimate that between 2017 and 2022 UK real estate deals by mainland China investors were down 88 per cent. The drop in deals for development sites is estimated to have fallen even further.
The political fallout was not the only factor in the decline. As China’s own debt-fuelled property bubble was about to burst on home soil in 2020. China no longer wanted to export the capital it needed to complete unfinished projects at home. It responded by tightening regulations on ratios of debt to assets, which made it harder for developers to borrow money and finish their projects. As developers operating in London ran out of money and fell foul of new regulations in China, so London’s holes became obliquely entangled in Chinese politics. Other turning points are revealed in the arguments surrounding the plans for a Chinese super-embassy.
Royal Mint Court , a site in Tower Hamlets, was sold by the Crown Estate to asset manager Delancey in 2010, and in 2018 the People’s Republic of China (PRC) bought the freehold for £255 million. The details of both transactions are murky. Delancey is based in the British Virgin Islands, where secrecy laws apply. Local residents questioned whether a public asset had been sold too cheaply. The site bought by the PRC also included 100 “affordable” flats at the back of the Mint built in 1987 and known as Mary Graces Court.
China is likely to be a troubling and troublesome neighbour
People living in the flats — represented by their Residents’ Association (RA) — were initially pleased about the embassy. The site had been empty since 2013, and was covered in weeds and razor wire which triggered further dereliction. But the positive mood did not remain for long, before residents — along with the popular mood in the UK — began to see China in a more sinister light.
Curious about the implications of the sale, the RA wrote to their MP about this extraordinary change in landlord. “HM Queen Elizabeth” was replaced by “the People’s Republic”. They wondered if their new landlord would enter their flats as lease covenants sometimes allow. Might residents be asked to remove their flags and posters? The PRC would be their neighbour as well as their landlord. What kind of neighbour might it be? Residents noted China’s treatment of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong and Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region. Both have sparked protests they don’t want in their neighbourhood. China is likely to be a troubling and troublesome neighbour.
Spying and the Chinese Super-Embassy Row
Hong Kong was another powerful argument against the building of the embassy. China’s part in crushing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and its imposition of the National Security Law (2020) drew attention to its human rights record. UK-based Hong Kong activists were quick to point out that the super-embassy could become a spy embassy monitoring Chinese citizens in London. The internment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang touched the residents too. About a third of Tower Hamlets population are Bengali Muslims. Letters to their MP and to the council planning office reveal that the RA considered the persecution of fellow Muslims grounds for objecting to the embassy.
In a further objection sent to the planning office residents attached an article written by historian Niall Ferguson, who warned that a surprise attack on Taiwan by China could lead the UK into a war. The residents were alarmed by this and argued that the embassy could become a target for attacks by protesters and terrorists that would make their neighbourhood unsafe. Tower Hamlets planning office were persuaded by the residents’ case. They unanimously rejected plans for the super-embassy in 2022 and again in 2024. The Mayor could have intervened to approve planning but didn’t. Beijing was reported to be furious that a local council could block the redevelopment of the diplomatic mission in London of a global superpower. UK-China relations deteriorated still further.
David Chipperfield Architects’ plans to convert the former Royal Mint base near the Tower of London into a new embassy for the People’s Republic of China
The most serious source of trouble in UK-China relationships has always been — and remains — concerns about spying and espionage. The UK’s growing dependence on Chinese technology — like CCTV and facial recognition — agitates these anxieties. Accusations about Chinese spies, spy balloons and cyber-attacks may or may not always be justified, but they further sour relations with China. While the National Security Act (2023), which protects national interests from foreign interventions, is not specifically aimed at China or Chinese people, then-PM Rishi Sunak at the 2022 Conservative Party conference called China a “threat”.
China has become an authoritarian threat to life in the UK in less than a decade
Once welcomed as a city builder with deep pockets, China has become an authoritarian threat to life in the UK in less than a decade. The reality might be less categorical and perhaps we need to be, too. In the long term, relations could improve. The story of the super-embassy points the way. Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, approved the super-embassy in January 2026 on the eve of the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s visit to China — no coincidence, of course. But it’s not over yet. An appeal against planning is pending and building work is yet to begin.
Even in the debris of the golden era London lives with substantial Chinese investment in business, infrastructure and the built environment. Of London’s 391 developments in progress, eight large residential and commercial building sites developed by five big Chinese developers are listed as still in construction or halted part-built. China’s footprint is all over our streets in buildings and businesses. Nearly 152,000 Chinese students study in UK universities. China is a global leader in science and technology, the world’s second-largest economy, and a global power. China is already part of everyday life in the UK. The question is how to manage this relationship in ways that benefit London and the country as a whole, and to accelerate the rehabilitation of building sites lost and stalled in the city.
