The alleged Chinese spy with links to Prince Andrew and who made connections at the heart of the UK establishment has been named as Yang Tengbo, a businessman also known as Chris Yang.
Yang, whose identity was previously protected by an anonymity order, can be named after a judge lifted the ban on Monday afternoon.
In a statement, Yang said he had applied for the order to be lifted in order to issue a public denial about the claims made about him. He said he was not a spy and had “done nothing wrong or unlawful and the concerns raised by the Home Office against me are ill-founded”.
Yang, 50, the former chair of Hampton Group, a consultancy firm, had been in the UK for almost two decades. He was first stopped by counter-terrorism services in 2021 and ordered to surrender his devices. Court documents said Yang had split his time between China and the UK and told officials he considered the UK his second home.
In February 2023, Yang was “off-boarded” from a flight from Beijing to London and told the home secretary was in the process of examining the case to exclude him from the UK. That order was made the following month. His appeal against the decision was rejected last week by the special immigration appeals tribunal (Siac).
Details of Yang’s close links to the Duke of York emerged last week in the Siac ruling.
The businessman had visited the UK regularly, attending events at a series of royal residences, including Andrew’s birthday party at his home. The hearing heard Yang was barred because he was believed to be associated with China’s united front work department, which seeks to gather intelligence on influential overseas nationals. The ruling said in his witness statement Yang had “downplayed his links” with the group.
In a statement on Friday, Andrew’s office said he had stopped all contact with the man, whom he had met through “official channels” with “nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed”.
Yang said in a statement he was devastated to have been excluded from the UK and denied he had ever acted against British interests. He said there was a “high level of speculation and misreporting in the media and elsewhere” and he was applying to appeal against the decision to exclude him.
He said the judges’ decision was “finely balanced” and they had acknowledged there could be an “innocent explanation” – which he said had not been reported by the media.
“The political climate has changed, and unfortunately, I have fallen victim to this. When relations are good, and Chinese investment is sought, I am welcome in the UK. When relations sour, an anti-China stance is taken, and I am excluded,” he said.
“I am an independent self-made entrepreneur and I have always aimed to foster partnerships and build bridges between east and west. I have dedicated my professional life in the UK to building links between British and Chinese businesses. My activities have played a part in bringing hundreds of millions of pounds of investment into the UK.
“I built my private life in the UK over two decades and love the country as my second home. I would never do anything to harm the interests of the UK.”
According to court documents, the businessman was so close to Andrew he was authorised to act on his behalf in an international financial initiative with potential partners and investors in China.
In the judgment that upheld his exclusion from the UK, the judge found Yang “won a significant degree, one could say an unusual degree, of trust from a senior member of the royal family who was prepared to enter into business activities with him”.
When the businessman’s phone was searched, officials uncovered a letter from March 2020 from Dominic Hampshire, a senior adviser to Andrew, which referred to him being invited to the prince’s birthday party that month and said: “Outside of his closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.”
The letter also suggested the relationship had a potentially secretive nature, and said: “We have found a way to carefully remove those people who we don’t completely trust … we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor.”
A document was also found on Yang’s phone that had “main talking points” for a call with Andrew, which said he was “in a ‘desperate situation and will grab on to anything’.”
Guy Vassall-Adams KC, acting for Yang, told the high court threats to name Yang in parliament by MPs had been part of the reason he had decided to apply to lift the anonymity order.
“There has been some publication of the identity of my client on social media and threats emanating from various quarters to name my client in public in this jurisdiction through using parliamentary privilege. Having reflected on these matters my client wishes to make a public statement and is applying for last Wednesday’s order to be discharged.”
Source: theguardian.com
