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The alleged Chinese spy linked to Prince Andrew has been publicly named Tengbo Yang after a judge lifted his anonymity order on Monday.
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 Home Office's decision, an appeal that was rejected by the Immigration Appeals Panel last week, and on Monday criticized his treatment.
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 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 leveraged 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.
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 the individual in the House of Commons.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, answered an urgent question on Monday afternoon from Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a prominent Conservative China hawk.
Yang, who was previously known only as H6 in court documents, has already been named on social media and some overseas news sites, and he said on Monday that he had asked his legal team to reveal his identity due to the “high level of speculation and misreporting in the investigations.” The media and others.”
