washington • Bugged by past spying notoriety in diplomatic buildings, the United States and China are taking extreme precautions in building landmark embassies in each other’s capitals.
In a bid to keep out eavesdropping devices and prevent other espionage threats at the new embassies, they have imported their own workers and building materials and equipment for the construction of key portions of the missions in Washington and Beijing, officials and experts say.
But such security fears have not upset the bold design of the mammoth structures due for completion before the summer Olympic games in Beijing in 2008.
With a constructed area of 25,000 square metres (269,100 square feet), the Chinese embassy will overshadow the other foreign missions at the International Chancery Center, a key diplomatic enclave in Washington.
“I think it will be unique for sure because it is much bigger than anything else in that area and the design is really based on a lot of basic principles of Chinese architecture but in a contemporary way,” said C C Pei, partner-in-charge of the embassy project.
His 89-year-old popular architect father I M Pei came out of retirement to jointly create the design for the embassy with him and another son, L C Pei.
The US embassy, with a 56,000 square metres (602,784 square feet) built-up area, is under construction in the Liang Ma He neighbourhood in Beijing. It will be the “largest single construction project undertaken by the Department of State on foreign soil,” the US government said.
While the features of the landscaping are based on ancient Chinese planning principles, the design of the US embassy building is representative of “the best modern design that America has to offer,” it said.
The building is designed by San Francisco based architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.
In an apparent bid to avoid any security problems, US State Department spokesman Kendal Smith said the United States and China concluded an agreement giving them the right to use their own workers in constructing the embassies. There are about 500 US workers in Beijing soley responsible for constructing key portions of the embassy, he said.
Around the same number of Chinese workers are in Washington to build their embassy, other sources said.
The long-term workers of both countries “will be considered administrative and technical embassy staff members” and “will have the appropriate diplomatic privileges and immunities,” Smith said.
The great attention given to security in building the two embassies stems from past US and Russian vulnerability to high-tech snooping, diplomats and experts said.
In a costly move in 1985, the United States tore down and rebuilt the upper floors of the new embassy in Moscow after it was discovered the Soviets had incorporated listening devices into concrete walls.
The bugs reportedly in prepoured concrete and in steel beams enabled Soviet spies to read US diplomatic cables. The United States government was also found in 2001 to have constructed a secret tunnel under the then Soviet Union’s embassy in Washington.
The tunnel, which had its entrance reportedly hidden in a townhouse, was designed to aid in a sophisticated operation to eavesdrop on communications and conversations in the embassy complex.
