If Yang Tengbo’s mission was to penetrate the core of the British establishment, it must be said that he did an extraordinary job.
Acting as a distinctly Anglophile Chinese businessman eager to create meaningful connections between the two nations, he infiltrated top institutions with astonishing success.
Now that the order banning the naming of the alleged spy, formerly known as H6, has been lifted at his own request, Yang’s incredible web of influence in British society can be revealed for the first time.
A shadow gliding through the corridors of power, the diminutive businessman spent two decades quietly immersing himself in the fabric of British politics, business, education, industry and royalty.
The 50-year-old was so close to the Duke of York that he referred to himself as “Prince Andrew’s special envoy” in interviews with Chinese media.
The Duke invited him to his 60th birthday in 2020 and appointed him head of the China branch of his beloved Dragons’ Den-style project, Pitch@Palace, which used Buckingham Palace as the official address of the Hong Kong branch. Yang was also photographed with Prince Michael of Kent at the UK China Business Leaders Summit in June 2016 at Windsor Castle.
However, the bespectacled businessman did not manage to raise only members of the royal family.
Yang Tengbo has reportedly become a “close” confidante of the Duke of York and has also been pictured with senior Tories.
Tengbo with former British Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip
Duke of York with Tengbo. The couple were so close that Yang was referred to as “Prince Andrew’s special envoy”.
Framed photos of Yang with former prime ministers Theresa May and David Cameron adorn the desk in his London office.
And he rubbed shoulders with then chancellor George Osborne at the first UK-China business leaders’ summit in 2014, which Yang organized.
This ability to charm top politicians and royalty extended to those attending Britain’s most prestigious educational institutions.
Yang played a key role in developing campuses in China for the elite Gordonstoun School, which King Charles attended.
The £61,440-a-year institution, which was also attended by Prince Andrew and Prince Philip, was the birthplace of the Duke of Edinburgh Award and the schools’ Round Square Conference, which was set up to ‘create opportunities for students and teachers to develop international understanding and confidence’.
Yang’s consultancy Hampton Group has overseen Gordonstoun’s expansion into China, which was announced in 2019 and surprised some of its high-profile alumni.
Among them was film director and writer Justin Baldwin, who captained Gordonstoun’s hockey team before directing Cash In Hand, starring Richard E Grant.
When the move was announced, he said: “Why would we start a school in a country where they have camps to convert Muslims by feeding them pork? That’s all (Gordonstoun founder) Kurt Hahn was against.
Tengbo at the event with a laughing Prince Andrew, who now has questions about their relationship
Tengbo with David and Samantha Cameron. On his desk was a framed photograph of the former prime minister
With Prince Andrew Tengbo. The businessman played a key role in setting up campuses in China for the elite Gordonstoun School, which King Charles attended.
In addition to education, Yang has been heavily involved with the business elite, including notably the late Lady (Barbara) Judge, described by Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour as “one of Britain’s best connected”.
Together with Lady Judge, a former chair of both the UK Atomic Energy Authority and the Institute of Directors, Yang co-invested in the fashion and home furnishings company. He rode to her aid in a rare vulnerable moment in her life with an uncanny sense of timing.
With his financial backing – and in return for a 40% stake in his start-up – he was able to found B&H Enterprise after resigning from the Institute of Directors amid allegations of bullying, racism and sexism in 2018.
Other company directors included Chinese entrepreneur Hua Xia, who appeared with Yang at Pitch@Palace Beijing in 2019, and Hampton Group CEO Jean Jameson, who was also the UK general secretary of Pitch@Palace’s China division.
Lady Judge CBE, a high-flying barrister, banker and entrepreneur who championed women’s rights in the workplace, had been accused of more than 40 episodes of inappropriate behavior as chair of the institute.
He was also a former chairman of the UK’s anti-fraud service Cifas, chairman of the Pension Fund, ambassador for UK Trade & Investment and a trustee of a number of cultural and charitable organisations, including the Royal Academy of Arts and Dementia UK.
He was also a former chairman of the UK’s anti-fraud service Cifas, chairman of the Pension Fund, ambassador for UK Trade & Investment and a trustee of a number of cultural and charitable organisations, including the Royal Academy of Arts and Dementia UK.
Scattered across so many influential roles in some of Britain’s most important institutions and unencumbered by royal protocol, Lady Judge would have had power and access that Prince Andrew could only dream of.
Yang (centre) quickly fell in love with the British way of life. He received temporary residence permit in 2012 and considered Britain his “second home”
Tengbo pictured sixth from the right at the Pitch@Palace investment event in January 2019
It is not known how he first crossed paths with Yang, who also co-owns management company Coeus International with ex-McLaren chief executive Sir Ron Dennis, a former head of science, innovation and technology.
Yang founded the Hampton Group in 2005 and opened offices in the City of London.
The company, which also has an office in Beijing, says on its website that it “provides strategic advisory, investment solutions and communications services to help leaders of international and Chinese companies solve critical business challenges and seize unique opportunities.”
Yang himself has described how the company worked with some of Britain’s biggest international companies, including helping McLaren Automotive introduce a luxury car.
He claimed that the company, which posted a healthy profit of £5.65m in its latest accounts, helped guide GlaxoSmithKline through a whistle-blowing investigation.
Born in Yunnan, southern China, in 1974, Yang graduated from a local university with a degree in history before working for seven years in a “national government agency”.
He moved to the UK in 2002 where, on his second attempt, he achieved the minimum score in the English exam for his degree and eventually won a place on a Masters in Public Administration course at the University of York.
In a 2006 BBC profile of Chinese students in Britain, Yang was said to have “forced himself to change his previous way of thinking into Chinese and to think and express himself in English, which would achieve double the results with half the effort”. And it seemed that Yang quickly fell in love with the British way of life.
Tengbo was used by the more English name Chris Yang
Prince Andrew was pictured driving a Range Rover from the Royal Lodge in Windsor on Monday
Prince Andrew and Sarah, Duchess of York attend a service of thanksgiving for the life of King Constantine of the Hellenes at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on February 27, 2024.
He was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2012 and would spend one to two weeks in the UK each month, considering it his “second home”, according to court documents.
He spent two decades carefully integrating into the British power structure before being barred from entering the country under anti-terrorism laws in November 2021.
However, advisers close to the Duke of York continued to trade with Yang.
In November 2022, Andrew’s “senior adviser” Dominic Hampshire was one of five directors who founded Eurasia Global Partners, a company said to be looking at opportunities to bring oil to China.
Another director was Irish oil tycoon Aidan Heavey.
The company partnered with Yang’s Hampton Group, and together they owned 30 per cent of the business, with Mr Heavey’s Albe Global holding 60 per cent and Mr Hampshire’s own consultancy 10 per cent.
Eurasia was also the name of an international funding initiative that Hampshire said Yang could discuss with potential partners in China on behalf of the Duke.
Mr Hampshire was integral to the Duke’s relationship with the Chinese businessman.
Court documents show she told Yang in March 2020, “I also hope it’s clear to you where you sit with my principal (Andrew) and indeed with his family.
“You should never underestimate the strength of this relationship. Outside of his closest inner confidants, you’re sitting at the very top of a tree that many, many people would love to be on.
When Prince Andrew in 2018 extolled the virtues of China’s controversial Belt and Road initiative to increase its global influence by helping to build infrastructure projects in developing countries, one wonders if Yang had encouraged him to do so.
The system has been criticized because the system can confiscate assets or use influence in these countries in connection with debt default.
In an interview with China Daily in 2022, Yang said he encouraged the UK to participate in the program.
“We will combine China’s kinetic energy with Britain’s potential energy, make full use of the benefits of both sides, and jointly explore potential commercial value in third country markets,” he said.
In another interview, Yang said that after Brexit, Britain “looked east and hoped to … strengthen cooperation with China.”
A possible interpretation of this quote is that it could be a crystallization of Yang’s own modus operandi. His targets, including Lady Judge and Prince Andrew, were often once great characters who suddenly began to feel weak and isolated when he arrived with a lifeline.
Does China see Britain the same way? If the allegations that Yang has actually been spying for the state turn out to be true, his brazen march through our corridors of power would certainly suggest so.
Additional reporting: Glen Keogh