The expression “useful fools” is attributed to Lenin to refer to those naive souls in the West who could be recruited to propagate or favor the idea and interests of the Soviet Union. Prince Andrew, brother of King Charles III of England, desperate to maintain his luxurious lifestyle and willing to get money from under the rocks, allowed for years an alleged spy from the Chinese Government to use him to access the highest echelons. power of the United Kingdom.
H6, as the alleged agent of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party was called until this Monday, was detained by British agents in 2021, in application of the anti-terrorism law, when he tried to enter the United Kingdom after a trip. A judge has finally decided, at the request of the suspect’s lawyers, to lift his anonymity. This is Yang Tenbo, also known as Chris Yang, who was president of the Hampton Court mining company and has lived in the United Kingdom, intermittently, for more than two decades.
On her mobile phone they found substantial information – texts and photographs – that detailed her special relationship with Prince Andrew. Thanks to that contact he had been able to access events at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Saint James’s Palace, as well as the Duke of York’s 60th birthday celebration. On the device they also found photos of the alleged agent with former prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May.
The UFWD was created at the beginning of the last century by the leader of the new communist China, Mao Zedong, as an organization to infiltrate foreign power circles, gain influence and gather information. Den Xiaoping rescued the operation, but it has been the current Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, who has once again placed on the front line a network that is very useful to him in his commercial battle with the West and his desire for global influence.
Threat to national security
Tengbo belonged to the 48 Group Club, a group of notables who, in the mid-20th century, aspired to build economic, political and commercial bridges between the United Kingdom and the Asian giant. Taking advantage of the British love for the exclusivity and sense of belonging that the clubs offer, politicians such as the former Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair, or Margaret Thatcher’s great conservative rival, Michael Heseltine, came to belong to that society.
In 2023, the then Home Secretary of the United Kingdom, Suella Braverman, gave the express order that Yang Tengbo not re-enter the country. He considered the agent a threat to national security. The suspect appealed that expulsion order before the Appeals Committee for Special Immigration Matters, a type of court surrounded by secrecy to which those expelled or sanctioned for reasons of national security can appeal. That is why their views are not public, and the anonymity of the actors is maintained.
Last week, the newspaper The Times revealed the content of the decision, which detailed H6’s delicate relationship with Prince Andrew. “The applicant had reached a position that allowed him to generate relationships with relevant figures in the United Kingdom and with senior Chinese officials; All of this could be used for purposes of political interference by the Chinese Communist Party (including the United Front Work Department) or by the Chinese State,” the committee resolution says.
“The Duke of York followed the advice of Her Majesty’s Government and ceased all contact with the individual concerned. [H6] once the concerns it raised were conveyed,” Prince Andrew of England has tried to save his skin again with a public statement. “The duke met this individual through official channels, and never discussed matters of a sensitive nature with him.”
A prince in financial trouble
In 2011, the scandal linking Prince Andrew to the American pedophile millionaire Jeffrey Epstein had not yet erupted in its full magnitude. But this relationship, of which there were compromising photographs, was already worrying the British Government and Buckingham Palace. Then, the Duke of York was stripped of his position as permanent trade ambassador of the United Kingdom, which had allowed him for years to travel around the world – especially regions with more murky political regimes – to make contacts and collect million-dollar commissions.
Desperate to maintain that lifestyle, he devised a new plan. He started the Pitch@Palace foundation (something like “pitching an idea to the palace”). The idea was to organize competition events at the residences of the British royal family in which young entrepreneurs with ideas could present their projects to businessmen with the ambition to invest.
Andrés secured the sponsorship of large banks and multinationals, which allowed him to continue earning large commissions. Extended the Pitch@Palace experiment to several countries, including China. The tentacles of Beijing, and its supposed agent H6, slipped through that crack.
The Duke of York was removed from all official activities of the British royal house in 2019. Her disastrous and arrogant interview with the BBC, to try to explain the relationship with Epstein, forced Elizabeth II to publicly distance herself from her favorite son. The extrajudicial agreement, in the form of several million dollars in compensation – more than 16, according to some media outlets – that he reached with the American Virginia Giuffre, whom he allegedly abused when she was a minor, was the definitive blow, which condemned him to social ostracism. to Andrés.
The identity of the spy
In the ranks of the Conservative Party there is a powerful group, led by MP Ian Duncan Smith, with a very belligerent stance towards China and its alleged threat to British national security. Both Duncan Smith and populist politician Nigel Farage have called for the spy issue to reach the British Parliament. Both had threatened to reveal the identity of H6 in the House of Commons, under the same parliamentary privilege with which Margaret Thatcher revealed the identity of Anthony Blunt, one of the famous Cambridge spies who worked for the Union for years. Soviet.
In the end, it was Tengbo’s own lawyers who forced his name to come to light by court decision.
The Starmer Government has thus inherited a conflict at the worst possible moment, when it wants to establish good relations with Beijing that favor the long-awaited economic growth of the United Kingdom. “We will always firmly defend our national security, and that includes any challenge to our economic security from China,” the Minister of the Interior, Yvette Cooper, admitted this Sunday on the BBC. “But we also need to ensure economic interaction and cooperation with China. “It is a very complex issue,” he noted.
