Court identifies alleged Chinese spy linked to Prince Andrew

The alleged Chinese spy linked to Prince Andrew has been publicly named Tengbo Yang after a judge lifted an anonymity order, raising new questions about his ties to the British establishment.

The 50-year-old Chinese national has been banned from entering Britain on national security grounds since March 2023. MI5 alleged that Yang – who has advised British companies including GSK and McLaren – worked for a group collecting intelligence on behalf of the Chinese state.

Yang had appealed the ban imposed by the Ministry of the Interior, which was an appeal He refused last week By the Immigration Appeals Commission, his treatment was criticized on Monday.

He said: “The common description of me as a spy is absolutely not true.” The political climate has changed and unfortunately I have fallen victim to that. When relations are good and Chinese investment is sought, I am welcome in the UK. When relations become tense, an anti-China stance is taken, and I am excluded.”

Yang’s case has reignited debate about the extent to which the UK government should go in reviving its relations with Beijing. His activities also highlighted the fine line between the legitimate activities of advisers, and what M15 Director General Ken McCallum referred to in relation to China as “interference activity – covert, coercive or corrupt influence.”

Yang has developed trade links with Prince Andrew and access to a network of other senior British political and business figures, primarily through his company Hampton Group International, which it said focuses on “investing in, consulting on and enabling opportunities between China, the UK and the rest of the world”.

The committee’s ruling concluded that Yang “was in a position to form relationships with prominent British figures and senior Chinese officials, which could be exploited for the purposes of political interference by the Chinese Communist Party . . . or the Chinese state.”

MI5 claimed that Yang was a member of the Chinese Communist Party and worked for the United Front Work Department, which collected intelligence.

The judges found that “there is not an abundance of evidence of UFWD links” but that there was a discrepancy between some of the evidence and Yang’s “claims that he has no ties to anyone in politics in China.”

Yang previously worked with British pharmaceutical company GSK to manage the fallout from its bribery scandal ChinaAccording to those familiar with the matter.

GlaxoSmithKline did not comment.

The drug combination was introduced to Yang by Sir Ron Dennis, McLaren’s former CEO, one of the people said. Dennis declined to comment. McLaren did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gordonstoun, a Scottish boarding school attended by Prince Andrew and King Charles, said on Monday that it had ended its agreement with Yang’s company, Hampton Group International.

Hampton International Group signed an agreement in 2019 with Gordonstoun to establish sister universities in China. The school said that for “legal reasons” it was “unable to provide further details at this time.”

In addition to his connections with the royal family, Yang met and posed for photos with former Conservative Prime Ministers Lord David Cameron and Baroness Theresa May. It was not clear when the meetings occurred and there is no indication that any of the politicians knew Yang personally.

Downing Street declined to comment on Monday on whether Sir Keir Starmer had met Yang at all.

The anonymity order was reviewed during a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice on Monday, before MPs threatened to use parliamentary privilege to name Yang in the House of Commons.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, agreed to an urgent question on Monday from Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a prominent Conservative China hawk, who warned that Yang was “not a lone wolf.”

British Security Minister Dan Jarvis welcomed the court’s decision to uphold the ban on Yang entering the country, and warned that “this case does not exist in a vacuum.”

He told MPs that Britain was facing “continued efforts by a number of countries, including China, Russia and Iran, to harm the security of the UK”, and said the government’s response had been “among the strongest and most sophisticated anywhere in the world”.

Jarvis said the Interior Department is “hard at work” on rolling out a new foreign influence registration plan — similar to the US Foreign Agents Registration Act — to begin next summer.

The case against Yang was based in part on data discovered from his phone seized by British security services in November 2021.

One document titled “The Duke’s Talking Points” dated August 2021 suggested that Prince Andrew was in a “desperate situation and will cling to anything.”

However, Peter Humphrey, an outside scholar associate at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, said Prince Andrew’s role in the saga was a distraction.

“What we should really be worried about are the members of the political elite in Parliament who got involved with this man.”

Once referred to as China’s “magic weapon”, the UFWD party, with which Yang is allegedly linked, aims to gain support for China’s political agenda, build external influence and gather information.

It focuses on influencing overseas politicians, the Chinese diaspora, and the infiltration of Chinese students into international universities.

Its highest body is the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body that meets annually. In late March 2022, state media reported on China Daily He was interviewed Yang described him as an external delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

He told the newspaper that he “actively participated” in President Xi Jinping’s campaign Belt and Road InitiativeIt is an infrastructure-building program that is seen as driving China’s global economic influence, especially in developing countries.

“Cooperation between China and the UK in third-party markets is showing new characteristics… ‘Promoting harmonious regional development,’ he said, echoing the Communist Party’s propaganda. ‘We will link China’s kinetic energy with Britain’s potential energy.’

In response to questions about Yang at a news conference in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said: “China’s actions were above all others and there is no such thing as deceptive actions or interference.”