Explained: Alleged Chinese spy scandal in UK, with links to Prince Andrew | News explained

According to the BBCAndrew said he stopped all contact with Yang after receiving advice from the government, but did not say when that happened. His office said they met through official channels and there was never any discussion of a sensitive nature.

Yang was believed to be associated with an arm of the Chinese state known as the United Front Work Department (UFWD). He denied the allegations, while a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the UK described them as an attempt to defame China, target the Chinese community in the UK and undermine normal personal exchanges. between China and the United Kingdom. Here's what you need to know.

Who is Yang Tenbo and what is he accused of?

Yang is a Chinese national who studied at a university in China and later served as a junior civil servant. In 2002, he came to study in the UK and eventually enrolled for a Masters in Public Administration and Public Policy at the University of York.

He founded a company in the UK in 2005 to provide travel services, then moved into business consulting. His details were published earlier this month when a special immigration appeals board upheld a 2023 government order banning Yang from the UK on national security grounds.

In 2021, he was subjected to a port stopover for unknown reasons and asked to temporarily surrender his electronic devices. He then went to court to demand the deletion of his data. During this case, Yang was informed that he was suspected of being associated with the United Front Work Department (UFWD).

The Investigatory Powers Commissioner finally authorized the government's retention of the data in 2022. The following year, then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman ordered it to be barred from the UK , asserting that this would be conducive to the public good. He contested this decision, which the commission rejected in its judgment of December 12.

Court documents indicated that Yang was able to establish relationships between prominent British figures and senior Chinese officials that could be exploited for political interference by the Chinese Communist Party (including the UFWD) or the Chinese state.

They also had reason to believe that a senior adviser to Andrew had sent a letter to Yang, confirming that he could act on the duke's behalf in engagements with potential partners and investors in China.

What is the Chinese United Front Work Department (UFWD)?

Yang said in his statement that as a Chinese national, contact with the UFWD was inevitable for him, although he had earlier stated that he had no ties to the UFWD.

The agency is not part of the Ministry of State Security, China's main intelligence and security arm. The UFWD was established some time before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power in 1949. At the time, the CCP was rallying people to become members, with the Nationalist Party (or Kuomintang) being its main rival for political control of the country. China. They eventually went to war, which the communists won.

In his book Chinese spies: from Chairman Mao to Xi Jinpingauthor Roger Faligot wrote: Through discreet and careful work within social, political, cultural, economic, and religious organizations, the UFWD brought significant segments of the population to the CCP's cause. Both at home and abroad, it targeted Chinese who were beyond the Kuomintang's sphere of influence or who were prepared to secede.

Li Weihan, a friend of Zhou Enlai (who later became China's first prime minister) was chosen to head the department. …As early as the 1940s, Zhou Enlai and his colleagues had set out to influence foreign parties and governments and gain support from public figures to help build a new China, Faligot noted. The UFWD thus became a major apparatus for influencing international opinion in favor of Chinese communism.

Rocket engineer Qian Xuesen is a prominent example of his influence in attracting big fish. Faligot wrote: Educated in the United States, Qian was working at the Caltech Aircraft Propulsion Laboratory in 1950 when the FBI was alerted that he was sending technical books and journals to China.

In 1955, Qian returned to Beijing to work on the development of Chinese missiles, and later the famous Silkworm anti-ship missile. He's not the only one: Eighty-four U.S.-trained Chinese scientists returned to China thanks to the UFWD's persuasion tactics, he added.

But the UFWD is far from being a thing of the past, with current Chinese President Xi Jinping calling it a magic weapon of the Chinese state. Analyzes by Western think tanks indicate that its messaging and activities have recently covered Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other regions traditionally critical of the CCP.

Also globally, suspected UFWD activities have been reported by countries such as Canada, particularly due to the growing Chinese diaspora in many Western countries. A BBC According to the report, cases like Yang's are becoming more common. In 2022, Chinese-British lawyer Christine Lee was accused by MI5 (British intelligence agency) of acting through the UFWD to cultivate relationships with influential people in the United Kingdom. The following year, Liang Litang, an American citizen who ran a Chinese restaurant in Boston, was indicted for providing information about Chinese dissidents in the region to his contacts in the UFWD.