The Chinese spy with links to Prince Andrew has been publicly named as Yang Tengbo 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 the UK since March 2023 on national security grounds. service, he worked for an organization that collected intelligence on behalf of the Chinese government.
Young had challenged the Home Office ban, an appeal dismissed by the Special Immigration Appeals Board last week, and on Monday he lashed out at his treatment.
“The popular description of me as a ‘spy’ is completely untrue,” he said. “The political climate has changed and unfortunately I have been a victim. When relations were good and Chinese investment was sought, I was welcomed in the UK. When relations soured, anti-China stances were taken and I was excluded.
Yang’s case has reignited the debate over how far the British government should go to restore ties with Beijing. His activities also highlight the fine line between an adviser’s legitimate activities and what MI5 director-general Ken McCallum has called “interference activities – covert, coercive or corrupt influence” linked to China.
Mr Young has business links with Prince Andrew and has links with other senior British politicians and business figures mainly through his company Hampton Group International, which it says specializes in “investment, Consulting and creating opportunities between China, the UK and the UK”. Rest of the World”.
The committee’s ruling found that Yang “has been able to develop relationships with prominent British figures and senior Chinese officials that the Chinese Communist Party may exploit for political interference.”[Chinese Communist party]. . . or China”.
MI5 accused Yang of being a member of the Chinese Communist Party and working for the United Front Work Department, which collected intelligence.
The judge found that “there was not substantial evidence of links to the United Front” but that some of the evidence was inconsistent with Yang’s “claims that he had no links to Chinese politics.”
Mr Yang previously worked with British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline to deal with the fallout from a Chinese bribery scandal, according to people familiar with the matter.
GlaxoSmithKline had no comment.
Former McLaren chief executive Sir Ron Dennis introduced the pharmaceutical group to Young, 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 it had terminated its agreement with Young’s company, Hampton International Group.
Hampton International Group signed an agreement with Gordonstoun in 2019 to establish a sister campus in China. The school said it was “unable to provide further details at this time” “for legal reasons”.
As well as her royal links, Young has also met and been photographed with former Conservative prime ministers Lord David Cameron and Baroness Theresa May. It’s unclear when the encounters took place, and there’s no indication either politician knew Yang personally.
Downing Street declined to comment on Monday whether Sir Keir Starmer had met Andrew Yang.
The anonymity order was scrutinized at a hearing at the Crown Court on Monday after MPs threatened to use parliamentary privilege to mention Young’s name in the House of Commons.
On Monday, House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle agreed to urgent questions from Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the leader of the Conservative Party’s China hawks, who warned Yang was “not a lone wolf”.
British Security Secretary Dan Jarvis welcomed the court’s decision to uphold Young’s entry ban and warned “this case does not exist in a vacuum”.
He told MPs the UK faced “continued behavior from a number of countries, including China, Russia and Iran, that undermines UK security” and said the government’s response had been “one of the strongest and most sophisticated in the world”.
Jarvis said the Interior Department is “working hard” to launch a new foreign influence registration program – loosely modeled on the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act – that will launch next summer.
The case against Young is premised in part on material found on his phone that was seized by British security services in November 2021.
An August 2021 document titled “The Duke’s Talking Points” revealed that Prince Andrew was in a “desperate position and would seize on anything.”
However, Peter Humphrey, an external fellow at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for China Studies, said Prince Andrew’s role in the saga was somewhat distracting.
“What we should really be worried about is the political elite in Parliament who are implicated in this man.”
The United Front Work Department, allegedly linked to Yang, has been described as China’s “magic weapon” aimed at winning support for China’s political agenda, building overseas influence and gathering information.
It focuses on influencing overseas politicians and overseas Chinese, and penetrating Chinese students in international universities.
Its highest body is the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body that meets annually. Until March 2022, the official media China Daily interviewed Yang and said that he was a representative of the overseas CPPCC.
He told the newspaper that he was “actively involved” in President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure plan seen as spearheading China’s global economic influence, particularly in developing countries.
“China-UK third-party market cooperation presents new features… to promote harmonious regional development,” he echoed the Communist Party’s propaganda. “We will connect China’s momentum with Britain’s momentum.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian responded to a question about Yang Jiechi at a press conference in Beijing: “What China does is aboveboard and there is no deception or interference.”
